Maple – 12 Week Journey

Training Begins: September 14th, 2024 | Training Ends: December 7th, 2024

Behaviors Maple will learn or begin learning during her stay here:

BEHAVIOR	Week 7
Sit	Responds to hand signal and verbal cue. She will occasionally “down” instead of sitting because she is guessing. I do not reward for guessing. Backing up a few steps and having her try again and rewarding in the right position will help fix this.
Down	Follows a hand signal into a “down”. She is staying in the “down” position for several seconds instead of immediately popping back up now. Working on further duration.
Name Recognition	Responsive to name 85% of the time outdoors and 95-100% of the time indoors.
Touch	Maple eagerly touches her nose to my hand when asked.
Recalls	When recalling with a very excited “Maaaaa-ple! Here!” she is coming back nearly every time. I do not use “here” if she is not responding to her name. If she is not responding, running away from her works like a charm!
Go Into Crate	Easily follows food into crate and is quiet while she eats her treat and settles in to sleep. I never hear vocalizing from her anymore so long as she has had adequate time out of the crate (Approx. 1-2 hours of time out and she is good to go and does wonderfully settling in the crate). Working on her learning to settle even without the adequate exercise for when she needs to be put away in an emergency and she isn’t too bad about that either as long as she has a chew to work on.
Sleep Training	Sleeps the entire night (7-8 hours in a row) but is ready to go first thing in the morning!
Leash Walking	Maple is doing wonderfully heeling on and off leash! She does occasionally wander but is responding well to leash pressure (turns her attention to me when she feels pressure instead of pulling). She is still going pretty short amounts of time that are appropriate for her age (walks that are around 10-15 minutes long).
Place	Runs to place when she sees it, happy to get her reward! Still working on her staying on it.
Stay	She struggles with this probably more than anything else because she likes to be right under my feet! She is, however, doing fairly well despite this being one of the harder cues for her. She stays on her “place” while I can take 5-8 steps away and come back. We are building this slowly to ensure she is nearly 100% successful.
Drop It	Maple is learning to both tug and “drop it”. If I have a very high value tug it takes her a little to respond to “drop it” still. If I have an average value toy she drops nearly immediately.
Leave It	We are still on “leave it” with a closed hand, which she is doing very well with, and have advanced to treats in an open hand. She does well with low value treats but struggles with higher value treats still (she is quite the foody!)
Wait	Waiting for a “sit” before releasing from crate, playpen, or doors. Maple is still a jumper when she is excited and I still have to patiently wait for her to hold a sit before she can be released from her playpen, crate or doors. As soon as she sees me she starts jumping up and down despite the constant reinforcement of sitting to get what she’s wanting. She is definitely faster to move into a sit, but I was hopeful the jumping would have been extinguished by now.
Potty Training	No accidents; going out to potty every 30-60 minutes while active. Will whine in playpen when needing to potty and will wait by the door when she is out roaming in the room. While in the playpen she is easily holding it for 2-3 hours.
Grooming	A little squirmy about nails being trimmed but handles it quite well. Does not like baths at all, but is good about them and is fairly still and cooperative. She is still not a huge fan of being brushed with the slicker brush but doesn’t mind a regular comb, especially if she gets to cuddle on your lap while being brushed!
Targeting**	Maple is doing a great job with targeting a piece of paper. I will be slowly transferring the paper from off my hand and onto various objects to set her up for pushing doors, drawers, etc. closed. She will target the paper from a variety of positions with me holding it high, low, and at face level and moving it around constantly. I am swapping to sticky notes now which will help with the transition from my hand to objects.
Retrieving**	Maple is decent at retrieving, but often doesn’t bring items back unless they are really close by. I will be continuing to reward this heavily but she isn’t a natural at retrieving so this will need to continue to be practiced regularly. She will pick up a variety of objects and bring them relatively close to me, but so far has not been returning them directly to my hand.
Tugging**	Maple is also not a huge tugger, but tugging is what we use to have them open things, so I am still building value in tugging. I have tried a variety of tug toys and none of them hold her interest for very long aside from fur tugs! While those can be used, I am hoping to get her more interested in fleece tugs. These are more advanced skills so if I can just get her consistently tugging them before she goes home she will be in a good place!
Get Dressed**	Maple is doing a great job with “get dressed”. She will run over and put her head through her harness rather seamlessly now!

_{^{*Please note your puppy is learning other skills in training including socializing, riding in cars, learning manners (no biting, no jumping, etc) that are not displayed on this chart, but will be discussed as needed.}}

^{_{**Not a typical puppy boarding behavior, being taught for service dog training}.}

Maple’s Halfway Report

Maple is an absolute joy to work with – she is incredibly handler focused when it is just the two of us! Out in public in the stroller, she keeps her eyes on me constantly and I cannot wait to work her in public on the ground – which will be very, very soon! She is a silly, funny, loving girl who just needs to know her person has her back.

Maple picks up cues rather quickly these days and is an eager learner indoors. Outdoors, she still struggles with maintaining her focus because she has so many fun things to look at and explore! She is doing much better outdoors when it is just the two of us, though. She definitely has a hard time wanting to work when the other dogs are around because she wants to be in play mode the entire time they are around. Working around the distractions has been great for her, though, and she is steadily improving in the length she is able to focus when everyone else is running around. She is very much still a puppy, though, and benefits from short training sessions vs. long ones.

Maple continues to LOVE food which will be your biggest helper when she goes home and beyond. Never be afraid to rely on food while she is learning and growing (and I recommend never stopping rewards even when she is an adult – we don’t like to work for free, neither do most dogs!) She still really likes meat such as chicken and turkey. Packaged dog treats are fine around the house, but outside they don’t hold her focus very well at times. When in public we will be utilizing deli meat and cheese to really bring value to the experience. I am thoroughly happy with how much her ability to focus on me has improved and am excited to get her out and about because I have a feeling, so long as her shyness doesn’t become overwhelming for her, she is going to be a superstar!

Maple’s shyness is still her biggest challenge. She is nervous initially in new environments and is still not eager to meet new people. This can be an advantage for a service dog, as you definitely don’t want the dog who is running around trying to greet everyone. In the stroller she does not appear to be terrified of people, just uninterested and still often sits at the back of the stroller or will move away when people trying to give her attention. People often comment “She’s the shy one!” and are pretty good about leaving her alone if she doesn’t want to be bothered. I have had some people stop us and talk to us for a long time and after a few minutes Maple does seek attention from them. Continuing positive experiences where she doesn’t feel she is backed into a corner and forced into interactions will continue to build her confidence.

Her other struggle is the springs in those feet! When I let them out of the crate/playpen all four feet have to be on the floor and it is always Maple holding everyone up because she will spring with joy when I approach. I ignore her completely, I don’t talk to her or look at her, I just stand there and wait for her to calm down. Patience will be the biggest asset to keep dwindling this behavior away. She definitely calms down much quicker, but still jumps nearly every time I am approaching. She does not, however, jump on people which is great!

Allowing Maple to mature while nurturing confidence, patience, and focus will continue to build her up for successes on her training journey. Maple really does well being rewarded for everything you love, and ignored for everything you don’t love, and all of her good behaviors are starting to really take shape and her bad behaviors (that jumping!!) are becoming less and less dramatic. I think the key with Maple is allowing her to mature while taking everything slowly and consistently. She is the absolute sweetest puppy and has a bright future ahead of her!