Capture the cues exactly as the trainer taught them
Puppy training unravels at home when every person invents their own version of a cue, so the first thing to record after each class is precision. Write the cue words and hand signals exactly as your trainer used them: the word chosen for recall, whether the release word is okay or free, the hand movement paired with each behaviour. If the class introduced a cue in stages — a lure first, the word added later — note which stage your puppy reached, because practising stage three when she is still at stage one is how cues get poisoned.
Record her performance in the room honestly, too. A cue she nailed twice in a quiet corner and lost completely when another puppy moved nearby is a different training picture from one she ignored all hour. Trainers read those distinctions instantly next week if you bring them written; from memory, most owners report a blur of good and naughty that helps nobody plan the next session.
Write the homework as a schedule, not a wish
Trainers set homework in the closing minutes, when puppies are tired and owners are gathering leads and coats, and that is precisely why it evaporates. Capture it in the car if you must, but capture it whole: which cues to practise, how many repetitions, how long each session should run — usually minutes, not a marathon — and in what environments, starting where she can succeed. Note any equipment the trainer specified and anything you were told to stop doing, which is often the real homework.
Give the homework dates in your own week. Two short sessions tagged onto existing routines, after the morning walk and before the evening feed, happen reliably; a vague plan to practise sometime does not. Note who else in the household will run sessions, so the puppy hears the same words from every mouth, and record each session briefly as you do it: what you practised, what improved, what regressed.
Log problems raised and the advice given back
Every class surfaces a problem: mouthing that is getting harder, a puppy who cannot settle on the mat, lead biting on the way to the car. Write the problem in the specific form you raised it, and the trainer's answer beside it in the same entry, because advice detached from its problem becomes unrecognisable within a fortnight. If the trainer suggested a management change — a different sleeping arrangement, a gate at a doorway — note that too, since management advice is the easiest kind to forget and often the kind that works fastest.
Keep a running list of questions for next week as they occur to you at home, in the same place. The problem that dominates your Thursday evening will have mysteriously vanished from your mind by Saturday's class unless it is written down, and trainers consistently say the owners who progress fastest are simply the ones who arrive with their questions intact.
Let the notes build into her training history
Kept weekly, these entries become a genuine training record: when each cue was introduced, how long fluency took, which environments still defeat her, and which rewards have worked at each age. That history is gold for any future trainer, behaviourist or boarder, and it protects you from the discouraging illusion that nothing is improving — the notes show exactly how far she has come since the puppy who could not sit through a single class.
Sharing the week's practice through KinsLe's Care Teams keeps the whole household training the same dog the same way: each homework task can be picked up by whoever has ten spare minutes, and completed practice is marked with a timestamp, so nothing gets doubled up or quietly dropped between classes.