Perhaps the most important mentality you can adopt when training begins, is setting your dog up for success. In a broad sense, this means not giving them an opportunity to fail.
For example, if you know that your pooch has a big problem with larger dogs, you want to avoid interactions with these at all times, right? Now what if you all of a sudden introduced him to a friendly Great Dane and gave him loads of biscuits? Unfortunately, it probably won’t go too well as you have pushed him way to far past his comfort zone.
How to set your dog up for success:
Setting your dog up for success involves two fundamental techniques, Management and antecedent arrangement. Essentially, (in smaller words) this just means organising the environment around your dog to give him the best chance at a rational response to a stimulus.
Management is about controlling what is going on, ie. The distraction around your dog. If you take Bruno to the park, and there are a million things more exciting than the piece of boring kibble in your hand, he is not going to listen to what you’re asking of him. Instead, setting him up to succeed with your instruction in a calm and focused environment will do the trick. Do not fear, we know you eventually want him to plop a perfect sit in the park, so once you have mastered the above, take a look at our blog on Distraction, Duration and Distance.
Anything antecedent is something that cues a reaction from your dog, it can be positive, like ‘Heel’ or it can be less so, like squirrel = chase. The key thing here with setting up for success is that you are 100% sure that you can override even a small negative, with a positive command – make sense?
An example would be, you know that your dog’s recall is so/so, but non-existent when he sees a horse. Instead of having him off the lead and hoping for the best, set him up for success beforehand by spending a few weeks or months working on his recall in a ‘managed’ environment. Use high value treads to override his drive and allow him to choose the best option. It can take a very long time and is certainly not a quick fix, but helping his emotions and reactions is the best way to see a confident and happy pup. In this case we would recommend popping a harness and a long-line lead on him before testing his recall out and about.