The Breakfast of Champions had a wonderful week! Like all teenagers, he’s either a REBEL or a VERY-GOOD-BOY. On the rebellious front, we forget we have house manners and we’ve hit the “explore all the thiiiiiiings” stage of development. It’s usually when our rock-solid recall goes out the window, especially in class because the instructors are the most interesting humans ever to have humaned a human.

On the Good Boy front, little man was moved up to Level 4 in his obedience classes — Among other things, we’re tackling a long recall despite difficult distractions (as a teenager, this one’s hard!), waiting before going through doors (that, he already knows), a multi-minute stay on his mat (check!), and heeling exercises around difficult distractions.

Also in the Good Boy news, Waffles had dog-trainer-and-behaviorist-extraordinaire Renea Dahms at Pawsitively Unleashed go over his work for the Trick Dog Novice AKC title! Hooray! He’s about halfway through collecting new tricks for the Intermediate title.

Waffles has been starting some very short public access training sessions just to get socialized and exposed to certain things he wouldn’t otherwise get to see and experience. He’s a lovely puppy in public, despite the visit from the Testosterone Fairy. I think adolescence is going to be challenging at times, but in all the right ways. He had a fun time at our local pharmacy, where the workers are really happy to help me proof some skills. A lovely neighbor gave him a turtle he’d been eyeing while practicing up and down the pet aisle (“Good dogs should have nice things!”) and he carried it all the way home.

Teen dogs go through waves of Fight or Flight behaviors and responses, which makes sense if you look at the development of their wild canine ancestors: this is the age of exploration, where you’re venturing out on your own, and where everything has the potential to be deadly. Teen wolves are discovering new and scary things each day, and staying alive means being somewhat cautious. How else do you figure out how to navigate semi-frozen waterways? How to stay out of the way of potential predators or competitors? Should you scurry away from the rumble of a rock slide or the crack of a large tree that is falling down? Probably! Our domesticated friends still have part of those instincts hardwired into their little brains. So I remind myself to be patient and to lead by example. I want my little furry teenager to look to me for guidance so he can make his own choices. Later in his life, he’ll have enough confidence to ignore unsafe commands (creative disobedience is a prized thing in the service dog world) and come up with workarounds. All these things start here!

Onward and upward! We have a few very busy weeks ahead of us, but training continues!