What Dog Training Methods Actually Work?
If you start looking for a dog trainer, you’ll quickly run into labels like positive-only, force-free, balanced, and everything in between.
Most owners assume the next step is figuring out which one is “right” or “best”.
That’s not the most important question. The real question is this: What is the real-life outcome?
Not the outcome in your quiet living room. Not in a controlled setup when everything is easy.
In real life. In a busy park, a narrow hiking trail, when your dog is off leash, etc… then what happens?
At the end of training, does the dog actually have more freedom? Are they relaxed and confident off leash? Can they handle the real world without constant management? Is their behavior actually better? Or are they still dependent on avoidance, food distractions and rewards, structure, or constant handler control?
That outcome matters more than any label.
Labels Matter Less Than Results
When people ask what kind of trainer I am, I usually say “balanced” because it’s the closest label for what I do.
It means I will stop behavior we don’t want and reinforce behavior we do want.
Sometimes that involves food or play. Sometimes it involves leash corrections. Sometimes it involves tools like an e-collar when appropriate for the dog and the goal.
But the label itself is not the point.
Good training should always account for the dog’s emotional state, clarity, and long-term quality of life. The end result should not be a shut-down or stressed dog. Nor should it be a dog who must live life on leash, isolated from other dogs, on trazodone or prozac for “anxiety.” It should be a dog that is stable, confident, and able to live freely in the real world.
I Used to Believe Treats Could Solve Everything
I started my career as a positive-only trainer.
I believed that if you were creative enough, consistent enough, and generous enough with food, you could solve almost anything without needing anything else.
At the time, I also believed I would never use tools like a prong collar or e-collar.
That changed through experience with my own dogs: Olive and Oak.
Olive Changed My Perspective
Olive is a border collie/heeler mix with extremely high chase drive.
If something moved—squirrel, bird, bike, trash blowing in the wind, even a leaf—she was after it.
She already had a strong recall in most situations. She was highly food and toy motivated, but none of that mattered once chase drive kicked in.
Olive living her best off-leash life thanks to her e-collar.
The thrill of the chase, deeply embedded in her DNA, was far, far better than the treat in my pocket. There was no comparison. She would choose the chase every single time without hesitation, and this was especially scary when she wanted to chase bikes.
Keeping her on a leash for life wasn’t an acceptable option for me or for her. She is a smart, curious, energetic dog who would never be happy with a life of confinement. She was bred to work and to run.
So I made a difficult (at the time) decision: I learned about negative reinforcement and punishment and bought an e-collar to proof a recall that would hold up even when her instincts kicked in hard.
She experienced a few fair corrections early on for ignoring recall cues. Once she understood the expectation, the decision was much easier for her. Ignoring “come” had a penalty now; it wasn’t just a fun free-for-all where she could ignore me and come back when she felt like it. Suddenly the chase wasn’t as fun. She wasn’t stressed or shut down or scared. She simply understood the rule: you have to come when I call.
Now she can hike off leash, explore, swim, and recall away from wildlife and bikes. That wasn’t achieved by managing her more carefully or using better food rewards, it was achieved by making the expectation clear.
Oak Changed My Perspective Too
Oak came to me reactive toward other dogs at just ten weeks old.
Oak, fully rehabbed and enjoying dog friends.
For nearly a year, I worked through the methods I originally believed in—counterconditioning, reinforcement of alternative behaviors, distance management, and keeping him under threshold.
Progress was minimal. The behavior wasn’t changing in any meaningful way.
What ultimately changed things was addressing the behavior directly in a way that made it clear that barking and lunging was not an acceptable option. His reactivity was simply punished.
Once he finally understood that behavior was not allowed anymore, the reactivity stopped, and for the first time, he was able to actually greet and play with other dogs appropriately.
He didn’t just become “manageable.” He became free to participate in normal dog life—playing, interacting, and existing without constant restriction or management..
What Actually Matters When Evaluating Training
A lot of training looks good in controlled environments but doesn’t hold up in real life.
So I don’t judge training by how it looks in a session.
I judge it by outcomes:
Is the dog relaxed and happy overall?
Does the dog actually have more freedom?
Do behaviors hold up outside of training setups?
Is the owner confident without constant management?
Does the dog get to participate in real life, or are they being prevented from it?
A dog doesn’t need to be happy in every moment of training. They just need to end up with a better life than they started with.
What Lure-Based Obedience Often Misses
One of the most common problems I see is obedience built almost entirely through luring with food. The dog is lured into a sit. Lured into a down. The dog constantly has food shoved in their face.
So what the dog actually learns is: “IF I do this, I’ll get food.”
Instead of learning “I HAVE to do this.”
That creates obedience that works in a quiet living room but falls apart when real-world competing motivators show up. Not because the dog is confused, but because the behavior was never built to override competing interests.
What Real Obedience Actually Means
The real gap in training isn’t what a dog can do under ideal, laboratory-like conditions.
It’s what a dog will do when conditions aren’t ideal.
When they’re excited. When they’re distracted. When they’re off leash. When something more interesting is happening. When no food is present. When the handler isn’t actively shaping every moment.
That’s the difference between obedience that looks good in a highly controlled training session and behavior that actually holds up in real life.
What Actually Works
Good training isn’t about avoiding every mistake or managing every behavior out of existence.
It’s about building clarity and real-world reliability with the goal being a happy dog that can live a normal life and an owner that’s not constantly stressing about their dog.
Judge Training by the Life It Creates
If you’re trying to decide whether a training method works, don’t start with the label. Look at the outcomes.
Is that training method getting dogs off leash or keeping them restricted?
Are those methods resolving problems or simply showing you ways to manage or live with them?
Do the trainer’s dogs look happy and well-behaved?
Does the dog become more stable in real environments?
Does life get easier and better for both dog and owner?
Or does everything still depend on management, avoidance, or constant control?
Because at the end of the day, the best training method isn’t the one that looks the cleanest in a session or sounds the “nicest”. It’s the one that gives the dog the best life at the end.
Do You Want Help?
I work with Spokane-area dog owners who want real results. Owners who want to do more with their dog. Owners who have worked with other trainers and got nowhere.
Private Training, In-Home Training, and Homeschool available.