Another important facet of operant conditioning involves setting your dog up for success. In addition to shaping behaviors (free shaping or a lure) using a primary reinforcer and a secondary reinforcer, you'll be creating a learning environment in which your dog will have a very difficult time failing to do what you want her to do. What this means is that you will be taking your dachsie's training in very small steps, increasing only one variable at a time.

For example, in teaching your dachsie a sit-stay (assuming she already knows “Sit”), there are two variables that will increase: length of the stay, and distance you get from your dog. You might first expect your dog to sit for three seconds. Once she's doing that, you might increase the time to 10 seconds.

Next, you might increase the distance by stepping away from her and stepping back immediately. Then you could step away for a bit longer. The key is to increase distance or time, not both. Remember, each step needs to be repeated correctly a number of times (with the appropriate click and treat to reward her each time) before you move on to the next step.

You would continue in these small steps until you could put your dachsie is a sit-stay, walk around her, walk away from her, jump up and down, roll a toy in front of her, or work on fixing dinner for twenty minutes, and through it all the dachsie would stay in her sit.

The basis of training this way is that the smaller the steps, the smaller the chance your dachshund has of making an error. The fewer errors she makes, the faster her training will progress, and the more sure or solid she will be in the exercise. You may think taking small steps will take an inordinate amount of time, but you will be amazed at how quick — and how much fun — it is to train in this way.