I walk down stairs, wait, click, come back up and treat. I vary 3 things: Distance, duration and degree of separation. The mean difficulty increases, but not every trial is more difficult than the last. This session only mild to moderate anxiety signs and no failures (!). We could push a little harder, but you usually want to at least go a few sessions without ANY failures before you push your luck. Other tasks (roll on to your side, hand-target, eye contact and paw) are used to break up the monotony for both of us and to keep her head in the game. br br Most protocols suggest no failures at all, but we're human and impatient - my personal rule is pushing it to a small failure once in a while is okay. In this case, getting up but not off the couch or getting over-aroused are all small failures. A catastrophic failure would be bolting, hiding, vocalizing loudly or showing major stress signals along with extreme arousal.