I’ve been hearing the phrase “set your dog up for success” since I’ve started training with the Honorable Grand Peanut almost 10 months ago. But I never really understood those words until now. I’ve not been setting him up for success on a regular basis. I’ve been letting him be a dog, and training here and there throughout the day, but mostly I will only “catch” him doing something I want to work on after he’s already started the unwanted behavior (it becomes a reminder to me that we still need to work on it). That’s not setting him up for success.

This morning we had an incident where I could have handled the HGP much better and managed the situation before it got out of control. Here’s the scenario: He saw some new dogs that he really wanted to interact with and started barking (attention barking) at them through the chain-link fence. I should have seen this coming and put him out of eye and earshot from the dogs before he started to bark. But I didn’t. I was able to distract him with some click/treat for a couple of sits/downs/here, but then he grew weary of that game (another red flag that I was not setting him up to succeed), and began barking again. The dogs were being restrained by their owner and they were not barking, I might add.
What I wasn’t aware of until now, is that I am actually reinforcing his barking at other dogs by training him after he barks at other dogs.

So in a different (successful) scenario, the HGP would have been in the yard doing dog stuff. I would have noticed the dogs coming (we were next door to a kennel, so there was a good chance there were dogs in the truck), and put the HGP away in the house. I would do this because I know that he wants to interact with the dogs, and he can’t, so he barks.

Success means that the dog wins, and this can mean that the unwanted behavior doesn’t even happen because I’ve managed the situation correctly.

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