A dog owner followed two different trainers: one used treats, the other used corrections. Both got short-term results, but neither explained why the dogs actually behaved the way they did. That gap sent them down a path of teaching themselves.
Chapters
I'm not sure where you think a good dog trainer comes from, but I'll tell you what, it didn't come here. I was not naturally good with dogs or even very ethical. I, I wasn't. I was just a bloke paying for dog trainers' advice and buying crappy books of like really hopeful messaging on them. And I had dogs with like real problems. Despite that, I did what you probably shouldn't do, and I just relied on stuff I'd see on telly, DVDs. Do you remember those things? You know, seeing stuff online. And yeah, a lot of it worked. Did it didn't in real life. And I actually made some pretty big decisions. I worked with trainers that, you know, some you'd call treat dispensers. You know, they distract dogs, feed dogs, and everything works as long as you're there throwing food at the dog. And like, there's so many times you'd teach the dog stuff and then in real life didn't work. Food was like a bribe. You're just like, please, you know, please listen. I just did what a lot of people do and they go the other end to the dark side. You learn from those trainers that are like the complete opposite, old school Balance trainers nowadays they're called, even though they're just traditional trainers. And I'll be honest with you, you know, I did what they all told me because, you know, they were the expert, I wasn't, even though all of the stuff felt wrong to do. But it was the same story. You're just— it's only working when you're there doing stuff. Threatening the dog now. There is something that I couldn't see back then, but it's so easy to see right now. Those 2 types of trainers, they disagree on almost everything, but they had one thing in common. They might have 2 different approaches, but they're doing the exact same thing. They are just training and managing every behavior just from 2 different angles. None of them could teach me the one thing I couldn't see back then, which is so obvious right now. No one spoke about why my dogs were like this. So I made a decision that clearly changed my entire life. If nobody could tell me why, then I just went and tried and learnt myself. And that was the start of my journey. But I'll tell you what, later on, it didn't go well at all.
