They talked about this a lot in puppy school. It's important for all training but crucial for behaviour modification.
We are facing challenges with both separation anxiety and fear-based reactivity. Both are underpinned by low confidence and high fear.
It makes sense to me that I should only be putting George in situations where he succeeds: situations which build his confidence and reduce his fear.
If I were to continue exposing George to situations where he is over threshold (a mistake I made in the past), it has the opposite effect. George's fear increases and his confidence decreases. His reactive behaviours escalate.
For his reactivity, setting George up for success means careful management and careful desensitisation and counter-conditioning to triggers. Which is easier said than done when you live in a busy area. But we do our best. I try to walk at quieter times and we avoid places where there are more likely to be triggers.
Counter-conditioning/desensitisation is too difficult at the moment with George's regressions. His baseline anxiety is too high. I would not be setting him up for success. So we've paused that temporarily to focus on decompression and management.
Sometimes triggers are unavoidable for us unfortunately. I have to go to work and George has to go to daycare.
Whilst avoiding triggers entirely is the gold standard, we build in extra rest and decompression time to try and compensate for the unavoidable triggers.
For separation anxiety, setting George up for success means never allowing him to go over threshold. Never allowing him to panic due to his fear of being alone which would reduce his confidence and increase his fear.
We are using Julie Naismith's protocol which is slowly (very slowly) teaching George to be confident and unafraid when left alone.
I need to set him up for success in the training as well. This means starting the training at the time of day he finds easiest. You only progress to another slightly more challenging time of day once they have nailed at least a solid 15 minutes at the easiest time.
For us, the easiest time is in the evening on a day he's been to daycare.
It feels a bit like cheating. But I've been reassured this is the most likely way we will progress - by setting George up for success.
Whilst it might not feel like progress, every safe departure is building George's confidence and reducing his fear.
I just need to be patient, hold the course steady, and trust the process.