Keep Calm & Waffle On

The Training Log of a Breakfast Menu Item

Week 4 – And so it Begins…

This week, skills start picking up speed, and building blocks of future tasks start being introduced:

Too young to vote, but not too young to visit the poll workers, citizens, and City Hall employees! Yum. Many treats.


ACTIVE CUES

  • Get Busy
  • Settle
  • Sit
  • Waffles! (name recognition and recall)
  • Yes!
  • Uh-uh
  • Trade You
  • Touch
  • Come
  • Down
  • Kennel up
  • That’ll Do
  • Get Dressed
  • Leave it
  • Watch
  • Drop
  • Get it!
  • Wait
Have you had breakfast yet? Eat breakfast.

PASSIVE CUES

  • Push
  • Pull
  • Step up
  • Step down
  • By Me
  • Heel
  • Nudge

BUTTON CUES (PASSIVE)

  • Outside
  • Go Play
  • Work Time

OTHER BITS AND BOBS

  • Nose presses
  • Dominant paw presses
  • Nose push and slide
  • Nose flip open
  • Paw push and slide
  • Paw flip open
  • Loose Leash Heel
  • Loose Leash square sit at Heel
  • Loose Leash recall with front finish
  • Loose Leash recall with spin-to-sit finish
  • Tether training
  • Housebreaking
  • Bite inhibition
  • People-neutral behavior in public
  • Self-soothing and self-entertainment in a pen
  • House manners
  • Training sessions
  • Public visits (in arms)
  • Focus
  • Building a retrieve
  • Grooming-specific skills
  • Nose-work
  • Puzzle and problem solving work
  • Exploring different footing/surfaces work
Mom says: There’s a brain in there, who knew!

Waffles is looking at a big step up in training this week: lots of words are now assigned to cues he knows and understands how to perform, and new ones are being added; he’s being introduced to real Loose Leash Walking and more formal shaping of specific obedience behaviors; we step up the work on self-control and self-calming behavior, and our training sessions are now about 5-8 minutes long, ten or so times a day. We’re also stepping up the use of puzzle games to encourage problem solving using nose, paws, and more and more complex sequences of “things to do before the treat gets released.” We’re also going to start introduction to nose work, something he is displaying quite a bit of natural aptitude for already.

Waffles will also be introduced to a greater number of new flooring/surfaces both indoors and out, and we’ll be focussing on people-neutral behavior when wearing his training vest. He has a number of social visits planned already this week and can’t wait to meet new people in strange new places! He’s a total social butterfly, but is very handler-focussed — that’s the best of both worlds!

BOOP with the big guy.

On the crate-training front, he’s pretty much set. He kennels up on command, goes bananas for his sacred Kong, naps like a champ when the opportunity is offered even if he’s not 100% tired at the time. This is a skill he’ll need later on when working: you nap when and where you can!

We’re working on bite inhibition and it’s coming along quite well. Like all puppies (and human toddlers for that matter) he gets chompy when he’s overtired or overstimulated. Having good crate skills and self-soothing skills makes the process a little easier!

Have a good week, breakfast food fans!

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