Everyone's idea of what constitutes a trained puppy varies. If your definition includes having the ability to control your puppy around distractions and teach her to sit, stay, down, heel, come, and wait, the answer depends on how quickly you can learn basic puppy training skills. If you are willing to devote twenty or twenty-five minutes of daily practice for ten weeks, both you and your puppy are likely to achieve excellent results. Plan your training agenda being sure to note the number of repetitions and specific ways to practice each exercise. Some days it may seem as if you're getting nowhere, but the cumulative effect of this strategy never fails to develop a proficient team.

Use the following charts to keep track of your dog's obedience training progress with each individual command. If you've followed the lessons in this chapter, the obedience skills will include sit, stay, down, heel, come, and wait. The chart has places for the date, commands you worked on, number of repetitions, and any notes you'd like to make about the session. These notes might include how long it took for your dog to show improvement, which skills he seemed to enjoy the most, and which family members have had the most success. Make copies of the blank charts and post them in a visible location. This will make it easy for each family member to document their training sessions and pick up where the last person left off.

All Dogs Are Different

Just like people, all puppies should be evaluated based on their individual temperaments and characteristics. No breed has a patent on problems or virtues. Therefore, stereotyping breeds does more harm than good. You should heed warnings to be extra conscientious because of certain breed tendencies — teaching a sporting puppy to listen to you even in heavily scented fields rather than following his nose; being on the lookout for aggressive tendencies toward other puppies in terrier breeds; or socializing herding breeds a lot, especially when they are four to six months old, so they don't become skittish.

Be Patient

Puppy training is an adventure of sorts: never predictable, sometimes elating, and sometimes tedious. Be optimistic about your puppy's potential but expect her progress to occasionally be slow or nonexistent. Don't, however, abandon your original goals and settle for meager results. Shoddy, half-learned obedience can cause annoying problems or allow them to fester. Many owners give up on training but later decide to give it another try — this time approaching it with far greater determination and achieving far better results. Whether this is your first time around or your last-ditch effort, recognize that a degree of frustration is part of the learning process. If frustration or doubt strikes, keep training. You may be five seconds from a learning breakthrough.

Use Praise As a Training Tool

With some puppies, a word of praise goes a long way. Others appear unaffected by it. Gracious puppy trainers use lots of praise at the right time in the right way to acknowledge and congratulate specific actions, concentration, and worthy intent. Experiment with a variety of ploys to find what delights your puppy no matter what her mood. Whatever you use, your puppy's reaction is the most important indicator that you are on track. Does your type of praise make her eyes bright and get that tail wagging? If she is bored by your technique, working to find out what she likes will improve every part of your relationship.

Use the following space to record different praise techniques you try, as well as your dog's reaction to them. Review these notes the next time you want to use praise as a training tool, and remember what works and what doesn't.

Never praise your puppy if she does her work in a distracted or preoccupied manner; she may think you are praising her inattention. On the flip side, punishment will do little in terms of training a puppy, unless you want to train your puppy to be timid. Generally, a dog will not link punishment to doing something wrong. Regular punishment will only make your puppy afraid of your training sessions.

Remember that your puppy has now learned these commands at home, but she will need to learn to obey in different places, too. Take your dog to a different place at least once a week and practice her commands. Take her to a park or have her accompany you while you're running errands to the bank or the dry cleaner.