Training log

One row per session, one row per cue with its stage, and the household's agreed words and rules. Seeded from your setup; everything you type stays in this browser.

For a first pass, the sessions sheet and the cue inventory are essential. How dogs learn starts the sessions sheet with your first marker session, and every cue chapter updates the cue inventory. The household agreement is essential if more than one person handles the dog; a single-person household can fill it in later. Skip the log and you lose the one record that shows progress the eye misses: a success count that rose from 5 to 8 in two weeks feels like no change from inside the sessions.

Sessions

One row per session. Attempts is how many times you asked; successful responses is how many of those were clean. The percent is successful responses divided by attempts. It is your own count, not a grade.

The skill list matches this manual. Use "Other" for anything else and say what in the notes. Write a row even for a two-minute session; short sessions are the point.

Cue inventory

One row per behavior. The stage is the furthest point the dog reaches reliably, five times out of five, not the best moment you have seen.

Stages, in order: lured (the dog follows food in your hand), on a hand signal (an empty hand makes the same motion), on the word (the word alone, then the signal if needed), in three places (on the word in three rooms or spots), with distractions (on the word with something else going on). First behaviors teaches the sequence; Proof it and keep going proofs it.

Household agreement

The words and rules everyone in the house uses. Write it once and read it back to the household.

Set up to train covers the agreement: one word per behavior, the same rules for furniture, doors and greetings, and who feeds, walks and trains.

How to use these sheets

• One session per row, one cue per row. A session that works on two skills is two rows with the minutes split.
• Count, do not grade. Successful responses is a count of clean attempts: the dog did the behavior on the first cue, without a lure, within a couple of seconds. Divide it by attempts for the percent. A percent that stays under half means the step is too big; split it.
• Record, do not conclude. Date, place, minutes, repetitions, successes and distraction are what you observed. The cue stage and the notes column hold your judgment, and you can change them.
• Update the stage only on five out of five. One good repetition in the park is not "with distractions."