When you have made a training plan and it isn't going quite the way you think it should, it is often because you have made the steps too difficult for the dog to accomplish. Breaking behaviors down into small steps is the key to the success of any training program. The easier it is for the dog to be right — especially in the beginning — the more successful your program will be.

It is a good idea for the trainer to have the plan written out so that adjustments can be made and steps can be added or broken down into smaller increments if it doesn't go as planned. Don't ever be afraid to go back and make things easier for the dog. Confidence comes from feeling successful. You will quickly make progress when a dog feels confident.

Flexibility

Being flexible in your training plan means being able to see when a dog is struggling and going back and making it easier to be right. It also means that when a dog is successful you know how to increase the difficultly just enough to challenge the dog and push the behavior along without making it so difficult that he quits.

If there's one mistake new trainers make, it's being too rigid in what they reinforce. The best way to experience success is to be a splitter rather than a lumper. A lumper looks for big chunks of behavior to reinforce; a splitter shapes the behavior in tiny steps.

Two Approaches to Teaching Down

A good example of this is in teaching the down behavior. Most lumpers just wait for the dog to lie down and will often use a food lure or a gentle shove if that isn't producing the right results. A splitter takes the behavior apart and reinforces smaller versions of the behavior on the way to the end goal of lying down. A splitter might reinforce standing still, then sitting, then sitting with the head down, then lowering the head, then leaving the head low, then bending the elbows, then moving onto a hip until the dog lays all the way down. It can be a lot of work, but the payoff is a dog that understands what you want, can give it to you on cue, and can quickly be retrained around any distraction.