This is the time of year where a lot of people set new goals.

And I thought, what a better time than to share with you the five questions I've

asked students all over the world to help pinpoint

the process they're going to use to overcome their dog training challenges.

Hi, I'm Susan Garrett. Welcome to Shape by Dog.

In James Clear's great book, Atomic Habits, he talks about having, when you look at all the things

you would like to change, setting goals, that you should ideally pick a domino goal.

That is one thing that if you fixed that one challenge, it would make the other challenges maybe unnecessary,

definitely easier to achieve. For example, let's say you're dealing with a dog who has

zero focus for you and zero focus for working with you. The dog won't come when they're

called. They jump on your guests. They pull on leash.

And when they get a toy, they play keepaway rather than retrieve. So, when you look at those

challenges, what one would be the domino? Well, if you had a dog that had great focus for you

and great focus for work, then he's more likely to come when

called because he's less likely to stray away. He's less likely to jump on guests because he's

going to be focused for you, which means he'll want to bring his toys back to you and far less

likely to pull on leash. That is taking a series of challenges

and taking that one domino, focusing on it, and it makes the other challenges seem simple.

This is what happens with the students in our recallers program. They'll come to us and they'll go,

okay, well, I played your, it's your choice game and I've played this, but my dog's still

chasing deer. You've got to be patient with continuing daily action, small steps when you

achieve small successes, the big success just happens. But you have to be

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