It looks like the issue is with the indentation of the print('wrong...guess again') statement. It is currently inside the if guess_counter < max_guess: block, so it will be executed every time, regardless of whether the guess is correct or not.

You should move the print statement outside of the if block, like this:

out_of_guesses = False
answer = 'dog'
max_guess = 3
guess = ''
guess_counter = 0

while guess != answer and not(out_of_guesses):
    if guess_counter < max_guess:
        guess = input('pick an animal')
        guess_counter += 1
        if guess != answer:  # Check if the guess is wrong
            print('wrong...guess again')
    else:
        out_of_guesses = True

if out_of_guesses:
    print('you lose')
else:
    print('you win')

Now, the print('wrong...guess again') statement is inside a nested if block that checks whether the guess is wrong or not. It will only print when the guess is incorrect, and it won’t print when the guess is correct.