OH BOY! The Breakfast of Champions has turned 6 months on February 12. He got to spend the week with a houseguest (his Grand-Papa from Canada) and work on his house manners. It’s been punishingly, visciously, dangerously cold here in Minnesota so we have a touch of cabin fever. Waffles, like me, likes to “play outside” so being stuck indoors (lest we freeze our noses and pawses) sucks. This also means he hasn’t had quite enough physical exercise in the last couple of days and it’s coming out sideways when he’s in structured obedience class. Poor guy is bored half to death and now that he’s an adolescent, he’s sure to let EVERYONE know about it.

All in all, his training is coming along very well. When he’s out doing early public access socialization training, he’s an absolute pro: poised, calm, happy to learn, inquisitive, and excited to do things. In structured group classes, he’s the hyperactive gifted child who can’t sit still and desperately wants the teacher to stop talking so he can get started on the assignment and get to recess faster. It’s totally normal for his age, doubly-so for a toller, seeing as they will find something to do on their own if they feel you’re not giving them a job worth their while.

As they say, a bored toller is a self-employed toller, and the job they find is probably not one you want them doing. In class, this translates to not wanting to sit still, frustration bwoofing, and being highly distracted. It’s frustrating for the human handler but it’s also profoundly amusing. I can’t help but laugh at his antics, and the positive thing is that it’s helping other handlers in class relax about their own misbehaving pooches too. As long as he’s moving and doing exercises, he’s a happy boy! If he’s stuck having to wait for our instructors to talk, he’s over it!

Now that he’s 6 months old, Waffles is stepping up some pieces of his training plan, and stepping back on others. We still have about two months of weekly structured classes we’ll attend, and then we’ll stop for a bit and take Rally-O and Nosework classes for fun while continuing to work on our Trick Dog titles. Teen dogs (especially of high-energy breeds) sometimes don’t have the self-control for “boring” formal obedience, and house manners and global community manners are more important to us overall at this stage so we’ll focus on that.

Here’s what we’re stepping up over the next few months. Bolded are points that, if nothing else, I highly encourage anyone with a teenager to pay particular attention to:

1. House “tab” leashing and more freedom.
2. Very loose and short public access socialization in friendly places: our local comic book store, coffee shop, libraries, rehab center, and other places we’ve gotten permission to visit.
3. Exposure to various things that can spook and scare, without flooding or creating scenarios where puppy gets worried. It’s all about gentle exposure and recovery from startling weird things. This is the age of flight responses and where memories matter!
4. Sound desensitization (he’s already pretty good!) to various things he’ll encounter in his working life — these things can come and go in adolescent dogs, so constant work is a good idea!
5. Threshold work for other dogs, wildlife, and birds. When we’re working, these things should be uninteresting!
6. Karen Overall’s relaxation protocol and 1-2-3 Games: we’ll be stepping up our relaxation training around distractions and working on focus which tends to slip during this age and stage.
7. Recall training through games such as hide-and-seek and jackpot rewards.
8. Reinforcing a no-tolerance rule on inappropriate mouthing behaviors using reverse timeouts.
9. Starting to introduce the take/hold now that all our teefs are in!
10. Building-Block-for-Tasks trick training and chaining behaviors. Crazy amounts of fun!
11. Adjusting our approach of the THREE Ds RULE in an age-and-stage appropriate way: The three Ds are Duration, Distraction, and Distance. Before adolescence, many puppies become great at increasing all three when doing exercises such as stay, wait, and heel work to the point where you’re even able to decrease the rewarding you do. Then teenagehood hits and they can’t manage all three, especially without rewards. So we’ll be decreasing the three D demands across the board: and will return to heavy rewarding when working on whatever he struggles most with at that particular moment and in that particular location. Sometimes it’ll be distraction, sometimes distance, sometimes duration, but never all three at once. For example, right now in group class he’s working on a 2 minute no-reward “down/stay” on a mat with the handler walking around 6 feet away ignoring the dog. Right now he CANNOT focus that long especially not with 7 other dogs in class, let alone with me that far away from his mat. So for class, I’m currently heavily and frequently reinforcing him being calm on his mat with me close by. Sometimes I step away and wait a little longer! Oh boy! But in general, we’re back to the basics on this, because he needs it. Like all teens, he kind of wants to know WHY I’m making him do this stupid thing, so it needs to be worth his while at this age. Younger puppies follow the ask because they really want to please. Same for older dogs. Teens? “You’re not my real mom and this is dumb, why should I do it?” So for now? He does stuff I like, I pay. I pay a lot. 😉
12. Introducing the “fidget box of chews” — a box of chews he can choose from, swapping back and forth between things. It seems to keep him happy and he can make good choices about what to chew on!
13. … and a lot more that I’ll keep on adding to the list!

Here are things we’re fading out:

1. We’re retiring soft toys for a while because he’s particularly chewy, and there’s a risk of ingestion.
2. Lunch!
3. Temporarily: button work, until we’re a little less mouthy!
4. Free access to tugs and balls. We bring things out with a purpose, and put them away to avoid over-excitement. They’re great rewards!
5. Some house barriers to encourage supervised exploration.

That’s it from us this week! It’s been nuts around here, but we’re managing well. Adolescence is a fun time, that’s for sure!