29/01/2026
Can't we all just get along? I think WE CAN! 💗🐾
I’ve just come off the phone after a conversation with another dog trainer, and if I’m honest, it summed up everything that’s broken in the dog training world right now. She’s a “positive-only” trainer, works nearish to us, and yes, like most trainers who’ve been around a while, we’ve inevitably shared a few clients over the years. No issue there. That’s life. What was an issue was the mindset that revealed itself during what started as a perfectly civil conversation.
She rang to ask if she could use some of my articles. Fair enough. I replied by asking a simple question: why not just share them directly from my page? Her answer was immediate, no, she couldn’t do that, because it would cause her “no end of trouble” within her training community. That, right there, was the first red flag. It was only later in the conversation that the reasoning behind it surfaced: because I’m a balanced trainer, and therefore, apparently, I “must use punishment”.
At that point, the answer became a firm no. Not out of spite, but principle. I’m not interested in my work being quietly lifted while the source is treated like something shameful. The irony, of course, is that she openly admitted she likes my content, reads it regularly, and finds genuine value in it, she just can’t publicly engage with it. That’s not ethics. That’s fear.
I follow plenty of positive-only trainers. I take ideas, perspectives, and good practice where I find them, then apply my own experience and judgement. That’s called learning. That’s called professional development. That’s called dog training.
And let’s address the “punishment” label while we’re here. It doesn’t matter what camp you sit in, everyone uses some form of aversive or pressure in training. Clip a lead onto a collar or harness: is that aversive to a dog? Yes. Restrict movement? Apply spatial pressure? Withhold access to something the dog wants? All of that carries an aversive component. That isn’t opinion, that’s behavioural science. Training is full of consequences. The real difference isn’t whether aversives exist, it’s how they’re applied, how fairly, how proportionately, and with how much understanding of the dog in front of you.
Which brings me neatly to the “science-based” argument, apparently positive-only training has cornered the market on science, while balanced training exists in some sort of medieval, evidence-free swamp. Absolute nonsense. If balanced training genuinely didn’t work, or routinely damaged dogs, science would have buried it years ago. Dogs don’t read Facebook posts or Instagram manifestos. They respond to clarity, consistency, timing, and good handling, regardless of what label you slap on the trainer. It’s 2026. We really should be past this by now.
What worries me most isn’t the trainers, it’s the fallout for pet owners. Imagine struggling with a dog, already stressed, confused, and probably feeling like a failure, only to step into a world where trainers are at war with each other, blocking, abusing, and shouting “my way or the highway”. I don’t care what you call me, balanced, mixed, whatever, I’m a dog trainer. In reality, I’m a people trainer. It’s 10% dog, 90% owner. And if you’re so blinkered that you can’t learn from someone else because it might upset your little echo chamber, then you’re not principled, you’re insecure.
The final irony? She follows my work quietly. Reads it daily. Takes from it. But heaven forbid she clicks “follow” publicly. Apparently, that would be a black mark on her record. Honestly, it’s laughable, if it didn’t boil my p**s quite so effectively.
