Hi {{first_name}} ,

I was at the shelter previously..

I brought a small camera. Shot about 20 minutes walking through the kennels. Nothing was set up.

What I saw was hundreds of dogs behind bars. Living on concrete. Some of them in their own waste. Almost every single one throwing themselves against the gates when I walked past. Not barking. Screaming. With every bit of energy they had left.  The others… they have just given up!

These are not the fluffy dogs you see in Instagram rescue posts. These are Malinois mixes, Corsos, pit bulls with histories nobody knows. Shepherds and the God-knows what mixes. Dogs that need real structure and someone who actually knows how to provide it.

Most of them are not going to get that.

In This Issue

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I want to be clear about something before I go further.

I have no problem with positive training. I start every dog I work with using a positive, relationship-based approach. So does every competent trainer I know.

What I have a problem with is the ideology that says corrections are inherently harmful. That structure is cruel. That if a dog receives any discomfort during training, the training is abusive.

Because that ideology has a body count. And nobody is counting it.

Here is what happens.

Someone gets a real dog. A high-drive Malinois. A Corso with guarding instincts. A pit mix from a chaotic environment. They find a trainer online who promises results without corrections, without pressure, without anything that resembles a boundary.

The protocols may work for a while. The dog escalates. The owner is told to scatter food on the floor, redirect, and wait it out.

The dog escalates further. The owner gives up.

The dog goes to the shelter.

And then the ideology follows the dog into the building. No corrections. No structure. Volunteers who have been told that any form of pressure traumatizes dogs. The dog sits in a kennel for weeks, then months, gets a behavioral evaluation, fails it, and gets euthanized.

That is what it looks like when a philosophy fails in the real world.

Part of what that ideology targets is the tools that actually work. The e-collar. The prong collar. The slip lead. THE REAL TRAINING.  Not as punishments... as communication. As a way to reach a dog who has stopped responding to anything else. When those tools get vilified, trainers lose options. And when trainers lose options, dogs lose their lives.

I have been working in and around shelters for over 20 years. The shelter crisis is not a space problem or a funding problem. It is a skills problem. And the loudest voices fighting against the solution are deepening the crisis every single day.

I have been thinking about how to explain the correction question in a way that actually ends the debate. I think I finally have it.

If you don't feed your dog, you are abusing your dog.

If you overfeed your dog, you are abusing your dog.

If you feed your dog hot dogs and ice cream all day, you are abusing your dog.

Same with corrections.

Not correcting a dog is abuse. Overcorrecting is abuse. Correcting with the wrong timing or wrong intensity is abuse.

The purely positive ideologies have convinced people that the first category does not exist. That withholding corrections isn't harm, it's kindness. But I watch what happens to dogs who never get clear feedback, who escalate, who do something that gets them surrendered.

Many are behind bars in a shelter right now.

Balance. Clear information. Timing. That is training. It is not complicated. It is just not ideological.

One of my dogs, Schmoo, was chewing his leash on walks. Real safety issue. If he chews through a leash and gets into the street, that is a disaster.

Here is what I did. Every morning before putting the leash on, I would lay it flat on the counter and coat it in Tabasco sauce / hot sauce. Then I would hook him up like nothing was different and walk away.

He reached for it once.

The problem was gone!

No drama. No confrontation. Just clear information the dog could use. The right tool, the right moment, information the dog can actually learn from.  Be aware, your dog should NEVER get any sort of hot sauce in food or put directly in his mouth, that could be dangerous.  What I did was put it on the leash, so that he would get just a taste - and that solved the problem.

The dogs in shelters deserve trainers who understand the difference.

1. Watch the work, not the highlight reel

The Dog Training Videos on my YouTube channel shows full sessions, not edits. Dogs that don't cooperate. Sessions that don't go smoothly. Real training, start to finish. That's the playlist that will actually teach you something. 

[DOG-TRAINING VIDEOS]

2.  Ask me directly

Every week inside my online membership I run a member Q&A. Members post questions, I answer them on camera. If you want to see how training really works, the stumbling blocks, the adjustments, the resolution, that's where it lives. [MEMBERSHIP]

3. The Corrections in Dog Training Masterclass: If you don’t already have it, I recently launched this course for the person who has been working with dogs long enough to know corrections matter, but hasn’t had anyone sit down and walk through exactly how they work. - [LEARN MORE]