“I’d like my dog to check in with me more often on walks” is a perfectly good training goal. In fact, it’s easily achievable.
Setting achievable dog training goals like this gives us something realistic to work towards, rather than constantly measuring ourselves against the finished result.
And yet, I wonder how many of us would look at that as enough.
We might think:
“Yes, but ultimately I want them to have a rock-solid recall.”
“I want them to walk perfectly on a loose lead.”
“I want them to be able to walk past another dog without even looking at it.”
“I want them to come back every single time, even when there’s a rabbit.”
And because we’re concentrating on that big end goal, we can completely miss the fact that our dog has already made huge progress along the way.
I’ve seen this in humans too.
My partner Alex is a particularly good example of this. He’s very good at setting himself goals.
The problem is that his goals tend to be big, ambitious and slightly too perfect.
And when he gets close to achieving one, he does something silly.
He moves the goalposts.
He’s almost reached the thing he originally set out to achieve, but instead of stopping to acknowledge that, the goal quietly becomes something a little bit bigger.
He doesn’t do this intentionally, he’s just that sort of person. He’s always striving for something bigger, something perfect.
So what was once:“If I can do X, I’ll be really pleased.”
becomes:“Yes, but I haven’t done Y yet.”
And suddenly he’s disappointed with himself for not achieving something that wasn’t even the original goal.
Meanwhile, all those things he has achieved along the way barely get a mention.
I think we can do exactly the same thing with our dogs.
The problem with the big end goal
Let’s say your ultimate goal is for your dog to have a really reliable recall.
That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to work towards.
But if your starting point is that your dog currently ignores you when they’re sniffing something interesting, there’s a pretty enormous gap between those two points.
If you only measure success by the final outcome, you’re going to have a very long period where it feels like you’re failing.
Instead, we can break that big goal down.
Perhaps your first goal is:
My dog looks at me when I say their name.
Then:
My dog turns towards me when I call them.
Then:
My dog takes a few steps towards me.
Then:
My dog comes all the way back when there are only mild distractions.
Then:
My dog can recall away from something slightly more interesting.
And so on.
Each of those is a small achievement. And importantly, each one is useful information about how your training is progressing.
This happens with reinforcement too. Your dog learns to do something when you’re holding treats, and it’s tempting to think, “Right, now they should be able to do it without them.” But being able to do it with reinforcement is a stage of the learning process, not something to dismiss just because it’s not the final version of the behaviour. I’ve written more about this in Why Your Dog Only Listens When You Have Treats.
Don’t move the goalposts just because you reached them
This is the bit I think we often get wrong.
Imagine you’ve been working on getting your dog to check in with you during walks.
At first, they barely look at you. Then one day they glance over.
Then they start doing it occasionally without being prompted.
Then they’re checking in several times during a walk.
That’s progress.
But it’s very easy to say: “Yes, but they still don’t come back every time.”
Well… that’s a different goal.
You don’t have to wait until your dog has a perfect recall before you can celebrate the fact that they’ve started choosing to look at you.
Celebrate the thing you actually set out to achieve.
Then decide what comes next.
Small goals don’t mean thinking small.
This isn’t about lowering your expectations for your dog or deciding that you’ll never reach the bigger goal.
Quite the opposite.
Having a big goal can be really useful. It gives you a direction to work towards.
The important thing is to turn that big goal into a series of smaller stepping stones.
Think of it like a journey.
You wouldn’t look at a map, decide that the only thing that matters is arriving at your destination, and then spend the entire journey annoyed that you’re not there yet.
You’d expect there to be stops along the way.
You’d know that each mile travelled means you’re closer than you were before.
Dog training works much the same way.
Make your goals measurable
One of the easiest ways to make this work is to make your goals specific and achievable.
Instead of:
“I want my dog to be better around other dogs.”
Try:
“This week, I want my dog to notice another dog at a distance and then turn their attention back towards me.”
Instead of:
“I want my dog to walk nicely.”
Try:
“I’d like to get five steps of loose-lead walking before my dog pulls.”
Instead of:
“I want a reliable recall.”
Try:
“I’m going to practise three successful recalls in an easy environment.”
Now you have something you can actually measure.
And when your dog achieves it, don’t immediately decide that it wasn’t enough.
Celebrate it!
Then you can choose your next step.
Recall is a particularly good example of this. “I want my dog to have a rock-solid recall” is a great long-term goal, but there are a lot of little goals between where you are now and being able to call your dog away from something incredibly exciting. I’ve written more about building recall with prey-driven dogs here.
There’s another reason I like working this way. Your dog doesn’t know that you’re trying to achieve some enormous end result.
They don’t know what the end goal is.
They don’t know that your ultimate ambition is a dog who can recall away from a rabbit, walk beautifully through the park and ignore every other dog they see.
They just experience what happens right now.
If we make the steps achievable, we give them lots of opportunities to get things right.
And every successful repetition helps build the skills and confidence that eventually take us towards that bigger goal.
Have a think: what are you working towards?
If you’re feeling frustrated with your dog’s training, take a moment to ask yourself:
What’s the actual goal I’m working towards?
And then ask:
What’s one small step towards it that my dog could realistically achieve?
Write that down.
Work on it.
And when you achieve it, let yourself count it.
Don’t immediately move the goalposts.
You don’t have to wait until you’ve reached the end of the journey before you can be proud of how far you’ve travelled.
Sometimes the little wins aren’t distractions from the goal.
They’re the goal.
And if you can learn to notice them, you’ll probably find that your dog is making far more progress than you realised.
Extra reading
This is something I’ve written about before too – patience is one of those things I regularly talk about with my clients, while simultaneously discovering that I’m not always very good at practising it myself! I wrote about this in What Crochet Taught Me About Patience..