Mai | Bernedoodle | San Bernardino, CA | In Training
- Alex Kruse
- Aug 3
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 17
Meet Mai! She's a six-month-old Bernedoodle from San Bernardino, California, and she's here for our Two Week Community Board and Train Program. Mai is an energetic little pup who knows only a couple basic commands and has a habit of jumping up when greeting people. She's very sweet and wants to be friends with everybody, so we just need to teach her how to do that while maintaining good manners. Over the next two weeks we'll be giving her a solid foundation with several commands, work on her impulse control when she's off-leash, and teach her how she should properly say hi to new people. Stay tuned for Mai's two-week transformation!
8/3/25
Mai was just a little anxious about going home with a new person, but she opened up pretty quickly once we got out some energy at the park. I tested a few of her basic commands but she was a little too distracted to follow through on most of them. She did give me a nice sit and a down at least once, and she was able to come one of the times I called her. It's a start! I'm sure she'll do much better once she gets adjusted to her new environment and to me! She also spent some time sniffing around the house to get her bearings, and played quite a bit with my dogs in the yard. She's adjusting very quickly, and I can't wait to get her out and really working!
8/4/25
Mai had a great day at the park with me and some of our other OffLeash SoCal pals! She was a little excitable at first so I did start her off on a prong collar, but she caught on pretty quickly to her leash manners so I was able to do the rest of the session without it. She's responding well mostly to verbals and some treat rewards, and I'm getting her accustomed to what the e-collar means. Her Sit and Down are reasonably solid, so mostly we just have to work on her holding those until she gets released. I began teaching her our Recall, which is to come around behind the legs and then Sit on the left side, and we also started a little bit of work on her Place command. She's catching on very quickly to everything! She did let out a bark here and there when other dogs were approaching, so we'll work on her confidence with that. A large group of people came to picnic at the park and she did incredibly well with them! She sat so people could pet her, and didn't bark at or jump on a single one of them! She is doing some jumping up at home so we'll continue to work on that, but for her first real day of training, she's doing fantastic!
8/5/25
Today I took Mai to a huge park that is almost entirely fenced in. Here it was safe to let her drag around a long line while I worked on reinforcing her commands hands-free. She stuck close to me without issues, and is really picking up on her Heel and Recall. She Sits really well when I tell her to so on that one we're still just working on extending the time she can hold it for, and we're still working on getting her to do her Down on the first command. Otherwise she's looking really good, didn't bark at anyone, and is starting to catch on that she needs to Sit when greeting instead of jumping. Only three days in and she's doing amazing!
8/6/25
Mai had a great day today! I walked her down to a neighborhood park using a thin, lightweight leash clipped to my belt. This made sure she was safe in case she decided to go off on her own, but otherwise the walk was completely hands-free. She was able to hold her Heel most of the way with only a few corrections, then at the park I switched her to the longline where she could drag it around without being tethered to me. Here we worked on her extended Sit and Down, her Recall, and her Place. I wasn't given consent to film, but just off camera there was a large school group picnicking in a covered area just to the left of the screen. She did great with that distraction, and only let out a couple tiny barks when other people walking dogs entered the area. You can also see where I'm running around that I was working on her jumping. She was tempted several times, but each time she moved into a Sit, that was unprompted. She's starting to self-correct and offer that Sit on her own, which is exactly what we want. She's doing great!
8/7/25
Since it was so hot today, we stuck to indoor training and it made for the perfect time to really work on that Place command! She does really well going straight to her designated place when told, and I was able to get her to hold it no problem for five minutes while people moved around the house (I broke her after the five not wanting to push it too far), and ten minutes when there were no distractions. I'm confident she'll be able to work up to heavier distractions and more time pretty easily with practice. All her other commands she's performing beautifully, and her jumping has all but ceased. She's a smart girl and eager to please, and I think she'll continue to do great!
8/8/25
We had a little adventure day today! I took her out on the Royal Oaks Trail where I kept her only on the long line. She stuck close to me the entire time, never putting any pressure on the leash. During the hike I would periodically stop to run her through her commands, and she performed all of them beautifully. Otherwise it was just a fun, casual stroll down the trail, and she didn't bark at anyone at all!
8/9/25
After nearly a week of her responding pretty instantly to training, I finally found her distraction threshold today! I took her to work in a field across the lot from a large dog park, and she was very interested in what all the other dogs were doing over there. The first several minutes of the session was just working to focus up on me, then she was able to get into the commands again once she realized I wasn't going to take her over to say hi to the other pups. I was hoping to get her off-leash today, but that was not the place to do it! So we just worked with the long leash drag again, and she did great the rest of the session. She did bark a few times at some of the dogs that walked past us in the field area, but she was quick to fall quiet when I asked her to without issues. I'll focus on bringing her there several more times throughout this next week so she can get used to being around a bunch of dogs like that. Otherwise she's still doing well!
8/10/25
I took Mai to a small park in my neighborhood that's nearly fully fenced in so we could work totally off-leash. She did really good with everything, able to fall into Heel cleanly, do her Extended Sits and Downs no problem, and she's really starting to like the Place command. I had no issues with Recall at all, even from across the park. There was a group of very small children who wanted to pet her. She did fine with that for about three seconds, then got really nervous and wanted to run away, so that is something to be mindful of. She didn't react poorly in any way towards the kids, but if she's off-leash and being approached by a hoard of children, keep in mind that's the thing that may break her from remaining in place. Otherwise she did amazing!
8/11/25
We had group practice with Mai today where I worked on all her basics close to other dogs and around big groups of people. I made sure everyone in group took a moment to pet her, getting her more used to friendly people in general, and some strangers came to say hi as well who were just picnicking. She only let out a small bark once at one of the other dogs who was practicing, but otherwise she stayed calm and quiet, and the distraction level wasn't so high where she couldn't focus. I was able to do some fully off-leash work with her and she did well. She's doing great!
8/12/25
I took Mai to Arcadia Community Park today, which is a massive park where I felt comfortable having her off leash. It was a partial play, partial work day, meaning we would do a little bit of roaming the park grounds freely, then I would call her back into a Heel to walk next to me for a little while, and would stop here and there to have her perform some of her other basic commands. She did beautifully, responding promptly and cleanly to every command I gave. There were other dogs and people there, but the park is so big that they were all far enough away that she didn't feel the need to bark at anyone. A guy on an electric scooter did zoom past us really close, but she barely even looked at him. She's doing amazing!
8/13/25
I took Mai to small neighborhood park today near a high school and walked her around the footpath that circles the entire park. She did all of it completely off-leash, and didn't even react when a skateboarder went by! There were several kids wandering through the park on their way home from school, and while she was a little nervous passing by some of them, she stuck beside me no problem. And no barking at all! She also hasn't even attempted to jump on me for several days now, and can Place for a long time on her cot in the living room while we watch TV. All her manners are coming along really nicely!
8/14/25
Today we went out to Almansor Park in Alhambra to get some more crowd exposure. We stayed off-leash, once again, and she stuck right by me the whole time. She let people pet her, I ran her in a field where I practiced her Recall, and even though she really wanted to, she didn't take off to chase the pigeons or the geese! It was a great day hanging out with her!
8/15/25
Today we walked around the neighborhood a little bit off-leash, which of course she did great with, and then did a lot of work on her house manners. She's gotten really relaxed and patient with all of them, usually going into her Sit automatically without me having to tell her to do so. She's gone the full week without trying to jump up on anybody at all, and always waits politely to be released when it comes to all her manners. She of course still gets all the fun puppy zoomies when we're playing! But she'll settle right down no problem with just a gentle command.
8/16/25
It's our last Pupdate in your two week program! We went over to the Peck Road Conservation Park just to run around and be a dog off-leash on our last day. She loved running through the grass and sitting by the lake, just taking in the breeze and all the smells it carried with it. There are a ton of ground squirrels at that park, and though she watched curiously as they ran around, she didn't attempt to go after any of them! We walked by lots of dogs and people and she stayed calm and focused, no barking at any of them.
Mai may be a silly, hyper puppy, but she's come such a long way over these past two weeks, and it's been an absolute pleasure having her stay with me for her training and growth process. She's very smart, super cuddly, and extremely eager to please, which makes her super easy to train. I know with continued work and practice, she's going to be an absolute great dog moving into adulthood! Thank you so much for letting me be a part of her learning journey!
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