Also it's a really fucking dick move to take a post talking about how money becomes an accessibility barrier even if the 'product' is overall worth the price and deride it by pointing out the person saying so has never titled a dog competitively. Maybe because the point of the post was that titling competitively costs more money than many novices make and so of course 'pet titles' that cost ten bucks with training anyone with even mild experience can do at home are going to be prioritized over training and titling costing into the thousands.
Maybe that's why someone who understands the worth of the expensive option but doesn't actually have the money for it buys the book written by that person and takes a cheaper class from someone adjacent to that person instead π€·ββοΈ
Anyway I loved it when I had a conversation with the mondio club I'm checking out after the holidays regarding club dues etc and the very first thing they said was 'we understand novices often cannot afford dues and we will work with any novice experiencing financial barriers to good training to ensure accessibility and inclusivity'. It's the conversation I keep having over and over. If people want these sports to survive then there is going to need to be a serious discussion regarding cost and availability to the people you're trying to get to buy. I can afford dues now but I used to not be able to. You know why I could afford to train in MD and not in PA or CT? Because the clubs in MD said I didn't need to start paying until I started trialing.
People *are* being prevented from getting their feet wet with novice level titles if the training is so expensive it costs more than rent. It can be well worth the price but it still costs more than rent. If you want novices and especially disadvantaged novices to be interested in your sport it needs to not cost more than rent or you need to work out a scholarship program or something.
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