Hard Truth: Training Camps & Labels, The Dogs And Owners Get Stuck In The Middle.

The truth is that good trainers regardless of the title or label they use such as balanced, positive only/force free, psychology based or traditional, want the same thing. That is healthy, confident and well mannered dogs living successful lives with their owners. We can disagree on certain methods, tools or approaches but at the end of the day, the dogs well being should be the common ground that brings us together, not another reason to disagree.

What started as a way to describe different training approaches has turned into division and marketing strategies. The result is endless arguments about philosophy and training methods while the dogs usually get lost in conversation, at some point the titles stop being useful and start becoming distractions. Dogs don’t care what camp you belong to or what ideology you value. They care whether training is fair, communication is clear, if reinforcement is meaningful and that the training helps them understand and be successful.

There are amazing and terrible trainers no matter what label is used or camp they side with. You don’t have to agree with everyone and you don’t have to train exactly the same way as everyone, but we should be able to be open and have productive conversations without immediately turning them into battles about methods and ideologies.

Valuable knowledge gets dismissed simply because they came from the “wrong” side and good trainers get shunned because they don’t fit a particular narrative. Meanwhile dog owners are left confused trying to navigate through world full of conflicting opinions and training methods. The industry would be a much better place if people spent less time butting heads with each other and more time sharing knowledge, discussing ideas and working together to improve and focus on what actually matters. The lives of dogs and their owners.