Our Philosophy On Dog Training

In the world of dog training there are many ways to train a dog. This naturally causes clashes amongst industry professionals, but I feel it’s important that people understand their potential trainer’s methodologies and philosophies on dog training. 

For us, we believe in providing true balance – which won’t be anything you haven’t heard before. 

But by this we mean utilising all quadrants of operant conditioning, we reinforce and reward what we like and correct what we don’t. We understand that our dog’s emotion and feelings are significantly important to how they behave, interact and progress through training. We do not ignore dangerous behaviours and have no set agenda on how a dog should be trained. All dogs are unique, set by their genetic predisposition & experiences, and therefore require a tailored approach for them.

It is no secret that we are what you would call a balanced dog trainer. But we do not really like these tag lines – we simply see ourselves as dog trainers. For some dogs, the approach may be completely based around positive reinforcement.. but for another dog it may be a case of using corrections.

When we see behavioural issues, it is important that we look underneath the presenting, surface level behaviour. We have to get to the root cause, otherwise the problem will continue to grow and surface. 

Using a reactive dog as an example, we have to adopt a holistic approach. It is far more complex than simply correcting the barking and/or throwing food at the dog when behaving. We need to look at everything from the dogs level of obedience, their relationship with the handler, genetics, ability of the owner, experiences, environment, the dogs motivations and more.

Good dog training is an art and requires us as humans to be able to effectively communicate and motivate an animal. It is our job as dog trainers to guide and coach owners in how to work in harmony with their dogs and provide the structure, leadership and consistency that dogs need to thrive and live their best life.

And perhaps most importantly, we want to simplify and make dog training digestible for people. It’s fantastic when clients dive into learning theory (classical conditioning, operant conditioning, reinforcement schedules etc), but for the vast majority, they want honest, effective advice that they can understand and apply in their day to day lives. 

We love what we do and will continue helping as many dogs as we can till we can no !