Brian has been a student in the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy “TEAM” program, a program that teaches and tests fundamentals online. I highly recommend it, and while any dog/handler team can participate just through the program itself, Fenzi’s classes are superb in their level of instruction and feedback. We took the Level 1 course with Laura Waudby, who was wonderful, and she encouraged us at class’s end to post a run-thru. While Brian is not ready for the true Level 1 test, there is a “pre” test that requires 6 out of the 10 exercises. While in some ways we’re not ready for apply for the actual test quite yet, I was very happy and a bit surprised at how well Brian did here. His exercises were:
- Engage w/o food or toys, and move into a disk pivot
- “Find front” straight-on and from an angle
- Back up to a target
- Send to a vertical target
- Jump
- Go around an object
Brian was so wiggly and excited through this test, I found myself in a state of laughter the whole time. Hmm. Can I translate that to an actual ring performance? My “handler’s presence” varies for each dog, and if laughter and joy are the hallmark for Brian’s obedience performances, I have reached handler nirvana as far as I’m concerned.
The Spaniel Annals 
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