My Training Philosophy

A lot of force free trainers love to attack videos posted by balanced trainers by saying things like, "the dog looks stress", "the behaviours are just being suppressed", etc. I like to discuss this, based on my own first hand experience both as a force free trainer (first 5 years of my career) and a balanced trainer, because I think this misconception can cause a lot of owners of challenging dogs to end up missing the chance to get the help they desperately need.

I have seen so many aggressive dogs who were totally healthy that were sent to various vets for all sorts of tests - when what they had was a behaviour problem that is not going to be detected by MRI, CT scan, X ray or things like that.

“No” is a complete sentence in the human world; ironically, it is a dirty word to lots of people in the dog world.

"You are not a skillful trainer if your dog is dependent on the training tool.”

It is like trying to wax a car. If you want to do a beautiful job, you have to be very immaculate about all the tiny little spots...

Why common methods do not work, and how should we do it instead?