Changes to Patreon

Hey Ya’ll,

So I wanted to give you an update on Patreon. 

I’m struggling, I’m overwhelmed, and I’m getting burned out. And I know I’m getting burned out because I started looking at jobs outside the industry. So that’s not great, nor is it the headspace I want to bring to this wonderful community.

Publicly, I’ve been making weekly YouTube videos and 16-20 shorts a month for 3 years now (and part time prior to that). In total I have 251 full length videos and 478 shorts. And for Patreon I’ve been putting out a live Q&A, a Deep Dive webinar, and weekly video content, every month for the same amount of time.

With Jake passing away in May, I’ve been struggling mentally with my training. He’s the dog that started it all, and his loss has been tough.

For those reasons, I’ve decided that I needed to take a little bit off my plate so I have some time to get excited about training and continue to put out valuable content for all of my fantastic Patreon supporters.

So what is that going to look like? It’s not going to be wildly different – the only difference is that instead of doing a live Q&A every month AND a deep dive every month, I will be alternating them by month. So even months (2,4,6,8,10,12) will be Deep Dive months, and odd months (1,3,5,7,9,11) will be Q&A months.

I will also be eliminating the $10 a month level – those of you who already are at that level will be grandfathered in (you’ll still be able to submit a question for the live and additionally, you’ll get access to the replay of future deep dives), but it won’t be possible to sign up for a new membership at that level. So I’m streamlining what I offer to just be the member level at $4 a month and the Inner Circle level at $20 a month.

There will be both a Q&A and a Deep Dive in August, and then this change will take effect in September (odd numbered month so Q&A month). I’ve actually lined up a colleague of mine for August to do a deep dive on training around distractions, which I’m really excited about! 

The membership levels will have the same benefits as before. I will be renaming the current member ($4) level to “DOGGY•U Crew”:

Benefits Summary:

DOGGY•U Crew (previously Member Level - $4): ability to attend the Q&A live, or any of the replays, access to all Patreon posts (400+) excluding Deep Dives, access to my Puppy Guide and all other PDFs, YouTube videos a day early and ad free until public release.

Inner Circle Level ($20): ability to submit a question for the live Q&A (submitted on the “call for questions” post), ability to watch and participate in the live Deep Dives, or watch any of the deep dive replays, 1 free trick dog evaluation per month, and everything the “member” level gets.

I came to the decision to scale back a bit after speaking to several Patreon members who thought the change was reasonable as they couldn’t even keep up with watching the amount of content I put out in a month, which set my mind at ease a bit.

I also will not be putting out a youtube video every single week, and am instead deciding to put out approximately 3 per month instead of 4, with the occasional public livestream on that 4th week.

This adjustment will give me a little room to breathe, plan for even better Deep Dives and general Patreon content (I do have some fun ideas coming up!), and get excited about showing you my training again. There are 587 posts on Patreon as of this post so there should also be plenty of content in the library for you to check out as I make this transition.

I understand that this means that I will lose some of your support, but ultimately, it was a decision I needed to make to be able to continue providing these resources (and not to burn my whole business down in a blaze of glory, hop into my van and drive off into the sunset – or you know, end up in the hospital or whatever).

As always, I appreciate you all so much. Thank you for supporting the channel through the ups and downs of life <3