TL;DR:
If you’ve ever googled “dog trainer near me” and thought,
“What the heck does any of this even mean?” — this one’s for you.

Because “balanced,” “e-collar,” and “behaviour modification” can look harmless…
until you learn they can completely rewire how your dog feels about the world (and not in the good way).

Aversive training stops behaviour by creating fear.
Positive reinforcement builds behaviour by creating safety.

And your dog deserves the second one.

This article breaks it all down — no jargon, no judgment, lots of stories, and a sprinkle of sass.

I want to tell you a story.

Not about me (well, okay, a little about me),
but about dogs — your dog, my dog, the dog you had as a kid, the dog you hope to have one day, the dog you saw on Instagram doing a perfect heel and thought,
“Why doesn’t my dog do that?”

Most dog owners do not start their training journey thinking,
“I need to compare philosophies”
or
“I wonder what the long-term neurological implications of this technique are.”

No.

We start with simpler questions:
“How do I make my dog stop pulling?”
“Why won’t she listen?”
“Is he being stubborn or am I losing my mind?”
“Am I doing something wrong?”

And somewhere in the middle of Googling “best dog trainer near me” or scrolling TikTok while stress-eating sour keys, we miss something crucial:

The dog trainer you choose isn’t just teaching your dog.

They’re shaping the whole emotional world your dog has to live in.

And if that sounds dramatic, good.
Because it is.

Most people don’t realize this — not because they’re careless dog owners, but because nobody teaches you this stuff.

Not in puppy class.
Not in the adoption paperwork.
Not in the “congratulations on your new pet” pamphlet from the vet.

Most dog owners only realize it after:

their dog starts slowing down in response
or goes stiff instead of curious
starts avoiding certain situations altogether
or “behaves” beautifully but feels… smaller somehow
or reacts “out of nowhere” months later

And then they think:
“What happened to my dog?”

So let me pull up a chair and tell you what actually happened —
and what to look for —
and how to build something with your dog that feels good, not just “good enough.”

This isn’t a lecture.
It’s not a debate.
It’s not a crusade.

It’s just the truth no one tells dog owners early enough.

Fear Doesn’t Teach. It Silences.

You know that manager who only talks to you when you’ve messed up?

The one who walks past your 97 good decisions and zooms in on the 1 thing you didn’t do perfectly?

The one who makes you rehearse your every move in your head before you make it, because god forbid you “do it wrong”?

Congratulations — you’ve already experienced aversive training.

Fear-based, or more commonly coined “balanced” training doesn’t teach dogs how to behave.
It teaches them how to avoid the thing that comes after mistakes.

And here’s the tricky part:

Fear looks a lot like obedience

…until it doesn’t.

Sure, your dog might stop pulling.
Stop barking.
Stop reacting.
Stop doing The Annoying Thing.

But “stop” isn’t the same as “learn.”
Submission isn’t the same as understanding.

Ask any human who has ever been yelled at as a kid —
you don’t stop the behavior because you suddenly understand what was expected of you.

You stop because your stomach drops.
Your chest tightens.
Your brain shuts off.
You do whatever you need to do so the yelling stops.

And dogs?
Same nervous system.
Same cortisol rush.
Same survival instincts.

And it's not that cortisol is bad, (topic for another day) but chronically high cortisol as a result of “training”, hmmmm, not so good”

Fear doesn’t teach emotional intelligence.
Fear teaches bracing.

And bracing looks like:

stillness
slowness
wide eyes
hesitation
compliance that feels like someone holding their breath

It looks like “calm.”
But it’s not calm.

It’s quiet panic.

When the emotional pressure lifts?
Or builds too high for too long?

You don’t get a well-trained dog.
You get a volcano.

A dog who erupts "out of nowhere,"
or shuts down,
or snaps at something small,
or becomes reactive to things that were never a problem before.

Not because they’re dramatic.
Not because they’re “testing you.”
Because no one can live in survival mode forever.

And no one can learn in it either.

“But My Dog Gets Excited When the E-Collar Comes Out!”

The world’s most misunderstood tail wag.

Let’s talk about one of the biggest myths floating around dog training:

“If my dog wags their tail when the e-collar comes out, they must like it.”

Ah yes, the tail wag —
the unreliable narrator of dog body language.

Dogs wag when they’re happy.
Sure.
But they also wag when they’re:

overwhelmed
nervous
appeasing
conflicted
or trying incredibly hard to keep things friendly

**Excitement ≠ Joy.

Sometimes excitement = emotional overload.**

Think about first-date or interview energy.

You smile too big.
You talk too fast.
Your laugh is slightly unhinged.
Your hands suddenly don’t know where to go.

You look excited.
But inside?
You’re thinking:

“Don’t be weird… don’t be weird… we’re doing fine… probably.”

Dogs have this exact same blended emotional state.

And the real kicker?

We were never taught to read body language beyond:

tail wag = happy
licking = affection
rolling over = belly rub
approaching = friendly

But those same behaviors can also mean:

“I’m not sure about this.”
“Please be gentle.”
“I’m trying to keep the peace.”
“I’m overwhelmed.”
“I’m investigating… friend or danger?”

You weren’t given a dictionary for this stuff.
Of course you misread it — everyone does until a dog trainer actually educated in Animal Behvaiour comes along and shares the truth.

**“But he runs toward the collar!”**

Yeah.
And some people run toward the wrong relationships, too.
Humans are complicated like that.

Sometimes dogs run toward things because they’re excited.
Sometimes because cooperating feels safer than resisting.
Sometimes because appeasement gets the moment over with faster.

Sometimes because they simply want to solve the “mystery”.

This isn’t affection.
It’s survival strategy — the canine version of nervous laughter.

I used to walk a tiny Chihuahua who had the emotional intelligence of a seasoned diplomat.

She stayed close.
She navigated big dogs with grace.
She hopped up onto logs, stumps, rocks — whatever she needed — to get herself space.

Sure she had Sofía Vergara level character.”
She was also a Little Dog in a very Big World, doing her absolute best to not get literally stepped on.

Then she went to a board-and-train.

Day one, they labeled her “sassy,”
which is usually code for:

“a small dog asking for space in the only way she knows how.”

And honestly?
If you were eight inches tall surrounded by giants who don’t watch where they step…
you’d speak up too.

It’s simple, really.

Then they put an e-collar on her.

When she came home, her owner said:

“It worked… but only when the collar is on.”

Translation:

It didn’t teach her anything —
it just made her scared to say anything.

And she made that very clear.

When the board-and-train company came for her “follow-up hike,” she ran into the farthest corner of the house and hid.

I truly don’t think she could’ve communicated louder than that.

But when I arrived?

She couldn’t get to the door fast enough.

And her behavior with other dogs?

That’s where the fallout showed up.

Before the collar, if a dog came too close, she’d simply hop onto a stump and take space.
Healthy communication.
Healthy boundaries.

After the collar?

She snapped.

Not because she suddenly became aggressive.
But because she learned:

“When dogs come close, I get zapped.”
Even if she wasn’t wearing the collar.

That’s a poop deal —
emotionally, physically, psychologically.

So she did the only logical thing her nervous system could offer:

She tried to keep dogs from getting close at all.

Not out of malice.
Out of survival.

She stopped using her gentle communication because it stopped working.
And when you ignore a dog’s quiet cues,
they eventually resort to the ones you cannot ignore.

“E-Collars Are Just Communication.”

A reaction is a desperate plea to be heard.

One of the most common arguments I hear from balanced trainers goes something like:

> “It’s not punishment. It’s communication.”

But here’s the thing — the dog was already communicating.

A reaction is communication.

A flinch is communication.

A pause is communication.

A dog freezing mid-step because they’re unsure what will happen next?

Definitely communication.

The human ignoring all of that and resorting to an e-collar isn’t “communication.”

It’s suppression.

Communication requires clarity, safety, and choice.

If one party isn’t listening (ahem, the human), it isn’t a dialogue — it’s control.

And when you put your trust in a dog professional, you’d think they’d be an expert in dog communication.

And you’re absolutely right.

They should be.

Let me show you what I mean.

When “Communication” Creates Caution Instead

I once worked with a dog who’d had a bark collar put on him to prevent him barking at strangers on the trail.

It worked like this:

1st bark: beep
2nd bark: vibrate
3rd bark: shock

He didn’t learn “quiet.”
He learned:

beep = pain coming.
(the fancy term for it is Second Order Conditioning)

And here’s where everything went sideways…

Once that association formed, it didn’t stay inside the collar.

It spread.

Suddenly, anything that beeped became scary:

the front door keypad
the electric fireplace turning on
the microwave
the smoke alarm battery chirping at 3am (I mean… fair)
even a timer on the oven

Every beep predicted something awful.

But here’s where it got EVEN worse—
because the front door keypad beeped every time someone entered,
he didn’t just fear the sound…

He started fearing the people walking through the door.

Visitors.
Family friends.
The dog walker. (Hi, it was me)
Anyone who didn’t live in his house.

He wasn’t “protective.”
He wasn’t “guarding.”
He wasn’t “dominant.”

He was terrified.

Because in his nervous system, everything that happened with the beep became paired with fear of pain.

That’s the problem with aversive “communication”:

**You don’t get to choose what your dog associates it with.

Their amygdala (survival response centre of the brain) decides for you.**

And once that association forms, you only get to deal with the fallout.

This dog didn’t learn a cue.
He learned a threat.
And that threat attached itself to every new visitor, every electronic sound, every “unknown” moment in his environment.

Not because he was stubborn.
Or dramatic.
Or “genetically fearful.”

But because his body connected dots that were never supposed to be connected.

“Well, Food Can Be Punishing Too.”

Yes — but only when it’s used the wrong way.

This is one of the most common pushbacks I hear when talking about aversive tools:

“Food can be punishing too.”

And you know what?
They’re right.

But the logic stops there.

Because the follow-up question is always:

“Okay… but how is the food being used?”

Food itself is not the issue.
Food doesn’t inherently create stress, fear, or emotional shutdown.

What causes harm is how we use it.

When food becomes pressure —
when food becomes coercion, a bribe —
when food becomes “do this or else” —
it shifts from positive reinforcement into something else entirely.

Here’s what that looks like.

The Hard Lesson I Learned Early in My Career

In my early dog-walking days, I had a dog who was terrified of the elevator.
I was new, eager, and very stuck in the mindset of:

“My job is to get the task done. Exercise the dog so they’re tired for the human.”

So I tried to lure him in.

He said “no” with his body.
He said “no” again with his eyes.
He said “no” again with his feet planted and weight shifted back.

And instead of honoring it,
I thought:

“Maybe he’ll do it for a treat.”
(aka, more food tossed toward the elevator like bread crumbs)

He finally gave me a very clear “no” —
by nipping my cheek with blunt teeth. (I can’t even sugar coat this, holy eff-bomb am I ever lucky.)

He didn’t break skin,
but the message was crystal clear:

“You’re not listening to me.”

And he was right.

I had turned food — something meant to build safety — into pressure.
Into obligation.
Into a force he had to resist instead of participate with.

That moment changed how I train forever. For ever-ever.

**Luring Isn’t the Problem.

Using It Without Consent Is.**

Dogs give incredibly clear “no’s.”
We just aren’t trained to hear them.

A dog who:

freezes
lip-licks
turns their head
leans back
refuses the treat
shuts down
or tries to leave

is not being stubborn.
They’re communicating discomfort.

When you lure a dog into something they’re not ready for,
food stops being a reward and becomes a threat.

Not because the food is bad —
but because the context is.

Imagine your boss promising you a bonus every time you meet a goal…
but then dangling the bonus in front of you
and refusing to give it until you “do more.”

Eventually, the bonus doesn’t feel rewarding anymore, does it?
It feels like pressure.
Obligation.
Entrapment.

Same with dogs.

**Reinforcement ≠ Coercion

And They’re Not Even Close**

Positive reinforcement doesn’t mean:

“use food to force them into things”
“use treats to drag them past their limits”
“reward the behavior you want at all costs”

True reinforcement-based training is:

offering the dog choice
rewarding curiosity
shaping at their pace
letting them opt in
letting them opt out
celebrating communication
and valuing the process, not the performance

It’s not:

“Do the thing or you get nothing.”

It’s:

“Thank you for communicating with me — here’s your paycheck for participating, even if we need to adjust the plan or give you a freebie.”

**Food Should Mean One Thing:

“You’re Safe Talking To Me.”**

Even if your dog doesn’t do what you intended…
you still give them food.

Why?

Because that treat is not payment for performance.

It's an acknowledgment of communication.

It’s a thank you.

A “thanks for telling me where your limit is.”
A “thanks for communicating instead of panicking.”
A “thanks for letting me know you’re not ready.”
A “thanks for staying in the conversation with me.”

Food should equal safety, not pressure.

Because when dogs feel safe enough to say “no,”
they feel safe enough to try again later.

It’s a participation award — proudly so.

Because:

there is no conversation without participation
there is no learning without emotional safety
there is no confidence without choice
and there is no trust without freedom to communicate

And truly — isn’t that the entire point of dog training?

Not obedience.
Communication.

Two beings trying their best to understand each other.

“Well, the world is inherently punishing.”

True — but your job isn’t to add more storms.

I hear this one a lot:

“The world is tough. Dogs need to learn to deal with it.”

Absolutely — the world can be tough.
Scary noises exist.
Unexpected dogs exist.
Slippery floors exist.
Children with popsicles (the most unpredictable creatures alive) exist.

But your job as your dog’s handler is not to add more punishment to the world.

Your job is to be the one place where the world becomes manageable.

**If life already has thunderstorms,

you don’t need to be the lightning.**

Dogs are not fragile glass ornaments.
They’re not going to shatter the moment real life happens.

But they are emotional beings learning how to navigate a noisy world in a body that doesn’t come with a manual.

And here’s the key:

**Bravery doesn’t come from being pushed.

It comes from being supported.**

Think about yourself for a second.

When you’re scared — really scared —
do you want someone to tell you to “suck it up”?

Or do you want someone to say:

“You’re okay. I’m here. Let’s move through this together.”

Support is what makes you brave.

Dogs are the same.

“If my dog looks at me during something scary, isn’t that seeking reassurance?”

Yes — and what a gift that is.

People say,
“Don’t reinforce fear,”

Well, here’s one fun fact o’day - you cannot reinforce emotions - BUT you can reinforce what your dog is doing while they feel that emotion. And if you have a dog who looks to you for support, heck yeah reward it.

That moment — the look — is emotional regulation.
It’s your dog saying:

“Help me understand this.”

They’re not being dramatic.
They’re not manipulating you.
They’re not “making a big deal.”

They’re communicating.

Reward it.
With helping them take space.
A soothing pet.
A piece of food to say, “hey that was weird, I saw it too, but here’s a good outcome anyway.”
You are literally shaping your dog’s stress response in that moment. Shifting it from “YIKES!” to “Oh look, a cookie.”

**Taking Space Isn’t Avoidance.

It’s Problem-Solving.**

A dog who backs up, turns away, or takes a little arc around something they’re unsure about is not “being disobedient.”

They’re coping.

They’re using the “flight” part of their nervous system instead of escalating to “fight.”

If we punish a dog for taking space, one of two things will happen:

they’ll shut down
they’ll resort to fight and defend themselves

Neither leads to confidence.

Encouraging space-taking, on the other hand?

That builds emotional intelligence.
And gives you a dog who knows how to think instead of panic.

**True resilience isn’t “not feeling fear.”

It’s knowing how to recover from it.**

A resilient dog isn’t fearless.
Fearlessness is actually dangerous.

Resilience is:

feeling unsure
pausing
checking in
breathing
recalibrating
and returning to baseline

Not because they were forced through it,
but because they’ve built the emotional tools to handle hard moments.

Positive reinforcement doesn’t teach avoidance.
It teaches recovery.

It gives your dog a nervous system that can return to center
instead of spiraling.

That’s what real confidence looks like.

“Well your dog can’t live in a Bubble!”

Nope.
And you can’t teach swimming to someone who’s actively drowning either.

Your job is not to create a bubble.
Your job is to create a buffer —
a psychological cushion.

Picture this:
You decide it’s time for a kid (yours, your niece, your imaginary stand-in child) to learn to swim.
Do you:

A) ease them into the shallow end with floaties,
or
B) pick them up, yeet them into the deep end, and say: “Kids can’t live in a bubble!”

If you chose B… we need to talk.

Because it doesn’t matter how calm you are —
if they’re panicking, they’re not learning anything except how terrifying water is.

Same with dogs.

The question isn’t:
“Will scary things happen?”

The question is:
“Will your dog have the emotional tools to recover when they do?”

That’s the difference between a dog who is “fine”
(read: Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional)
and a dog who is actually okay.

A dog who is:

pulling hard
shaking
freezing
barking
pacing
hypervigilant
doing that frantic “figure eight” sniffing
or refusing food

is not being “dramatic.”
They’re drowning.

You can’t have a conversation with a drowning creature.
And honestly?
You can’t have one with a human who’s drowning either — emotionally or otherwise.
You’re just scrambling to save them.

So when people say,
“Dogs can’t live in a bubble,”
what they should be saying is:

“Dogs deserve a ladder out of the deep end first.”

Train FOR the Moment, Not IN the Moment

(yes, we’re expanding this because this is the part people miss)

Skills aren’t built in the test.
Skills are built in the classroom.

Real life situations are the test.

And the order matters.

Calmness is taught:

in your home
then your veranda
then the quiet park
then the slow café patio
then the bustling patio
then the real-life circus of joggers, scooters, barking dogs, clattering dishes, and children who have no volume control
(I swear I like children — but I’m also realistic about the absolute novelty machines they are.)

The same way you don’t learn math in a calculus exam,
dogs don’t learn coping skills by being shoved into their biggest fears.

Exposure is not the goal.
Peaceful coexistence is.

And that starts slow.

Every step is a rep.
Every rep is a layer.
Every layer is a foundation.

If you skip steps, you don’t get a confident dog —
you get a confused one.

And confusion doesn’t build resilience.
It builds reactivity.

Emotional Intelligence > Obedience

Because no one — dog or human — makes good choices when their nervous system is tap-dancing on the ceiling.

Here’s the reframe most people don’t get until waaaay later (like, two trainers later, three regrets later, and “why is my dog even more reactive now?” later):

A “well-trained dog” isn’t the dog who never messes up.
(Do you know any humans who never mess up? Yeah, me neither. We can’t even stick to a New Year’s resolution for 12 hours.)

A well-trained dog is the one who can actually cope with real life.

The dog who can:

look away from a trigger
choose stillness instead of panic
bounce back from stress
slow their breathing
self-settle after a big moment
make smart choices
trust you when the world tilts sideways

That’s not obedience.
That’s emotional intelligence.

That’s a nervous system that knows what to do with itself.

It’s the difference between a coworker who freezes and drops their coffee at the first sign of stress
vs.
that one coworker (we all have one) who can say, “Okay, weird situation. Let’s think,” and then fixes the printer with a paper clip and pure determination.

One is meltdown energy.
One is emotional skill.

Your dog deserves to be the second one.

Emotional intelligence creates a dog who can think — not just perform.

Obedience can be memorized.
Emotional intelligence has to be felt.

And it grows from:

safety
clarity
repetition that doesn’t overwhelm
room to breathe
room to move
room to say “I’m not ready”

You cannot punish a dog into self-regulation.
You cannot force a dog to recover faster.
You cannot correct a dog into feeling okay.

In fact, trying to force it is like shaking a soda can — you might not see the pressure building, but it will explode on you.

You can only teach those skills with emotional safety, consistency, and reinforcement.

What Emotional Intelligence Actually Requires

(but said in human terms, not in a dog-trainer-robot way)

It requires:

shaping — because learning is a staircase, not a rocket launch, and problem-solving is how brains actually get smarter
reinforcement — because confidence grows where success gets acknowledged (same with humans, by the way)
safety — because scared brains don’t learn, they hide
repetition — at a pace your dog can digest without exploding
supportive input — enough anchoring that your dog doesn’t feel like they’re freelancing life
joy and play woven in — because positive emotion keeps the learning brain open and cements memory like emotional Gorilla Glue
freedom to say “yes” or “no” — because communication is a two-being activity
a human who listens instead of demands — because your dog’s internal state is the REAL success gauge

This is how you build the dog who can think through distractions —
not because they’re trying to avoid getting it wrong,
but because they feel safe enough to stay in the moment with you.

A thinking dog is a brilliant dog.
A bracing dog is a ticking time bomb.

And the difference between the two is always — always — emotional safety.

The Bottom Line:

Dog Training Is a Conversation, Not a Command System**

And your dog has been trying to talk to you… you just needed someone to translate.

At the end of the day, underneath all the science and stories and metaphors and “please stop using the word dominance” speeches, the truth is simple:

Your dog is not trying to be perfect.
They’re trying to be understood.

And the method you choose determines whether your dog learns:

“I can talk to my human,”
or
“I should keep quiet and hope nothing goes wrong.”

Huge difference.

Obedience without safety is just fear wearing a costume.

You can absolutely get obedience with:

pressure
corrections
e-collar stim
raised voice
a “firm hand”

But let’s be honest:

If the only reason your dog listens is because they’re too afraid to speak…
that’s not obedience.

That’s compliance.
And compliance is fragile.
Compliance is cold.

You can’t have trust without safety.
You can’t have learning without trust.
And you can’t have communication without both.

And here’s the unglamorous truth:

If safety and communication aren’t the foundation,
any obedience you get will be conditional —
conditional on low stress,
conditional on pressure,
conditional on your dog keeping their internal world quiet enough to function.

It’s like shoving all the mess into one hallway closet when guests come over.
Looks tidy…
until the door pops open and the blender hits someone in the face.

Real training — real learning — doesn’t come at the cost of your relationship.

**Aversives can change a behavior.

Positive reinforcement changes a life.**

Aversives create dogs who don’t want to get it wrong.
Positive reinforcement creates dogs who feel safe enough to try.

One teaches fear of failure.
One teaches curiosity.

One creates silence.
One creates communication.

One builds obedience that collapses under pressure.
One builds emotional intelligence that holds steady through the curveballs of real life.

And real life is where your dog actually needs their training.

Not in the living room with zero distractions.
But on the hiking trail.
On the patio.
In the doorway.
In the parking lot.
On the street corner with the skateboarder, stroller, bus, and bag of Doritos blowing across the road like a tumbleweed of temptation.

**The method you choose doesn’t just shape your dog’s behavior.

It shapes their entire emotional world.**

It shapes:

how they see themselves
how they see you
how they interpret stress
how they cope
how they bounce back
how they communicate
how they trust
how safe they feel being a dog in your world

Training isn’t about being “firm” or “dominant” or “alpha.”

It’s about being someone your dog can think with.

Someone your dog feels safe around.

Someone your dog can check in with instead of checking out.

Someone your dog can tell the truth to — even when that truth is “I’m not okay right now.”

Because once your dog knows their truth is welcome…
once they know their communication is safe with you…
once they know trying isn’t dangerous…
Your dog’s behaviour becomes robust.

They stop bracing.
They start learning.
They start choosing you.
And the relationship becomes the thing you always hoped it would be.

Not perfect.
Not robotic.
Not Instagram-worthy every second.

But real.
And connected.
And safe.

And that — that right there — is what a well-trained dog truly is.

What Every Dog Owner Should Know Before Starting Training