There is more than one way to skin a cat

If you do a search or browse books on a term such as “dog training”, you will be slightly overwhelmed by the various options and opinions. Many of the methods out there do tend to fall into general categories such as positive reinforcement, dominance theory, luring , shaping, clicker etc… the modern version of two broadest categories can be simply defined as “the Ceasar Milan way” or the “Victoria Stillwell way”. Please understand that neither Ceasar nor Victoria developed their methods from scratch. They are both based on long term dog theory, the dominance theory (Ceasar) being in existence longer than the positive reinforcement methods of Ian Dunbar(Victoria). Researcher beware – there are very strong opinions on both.
I encourage anyone who is interested in any dog training to do their own thorough research. Personally, I feel that there are pros and cons to both methods and which ones to choose or what combination of trainings to use depends largely on the dog and the handler. I also believe that as a trainer, I should understand and appreciate each method for what it is and while I can have an opinion, it comes down to what my students want and need. I would of course refuse to use older, harsh training methods that border on abusive. This can be a fine line, a very gray area to some, but I use my common sense.
Maybe both fortunately and unfortunately, there is a lot of emotion that plays into most if not all of the decisions we make regarding our dogs. Take care not to let emotion make the decision for you, but use your emotion to help you make a training decision you are comfortable with and not what someone tells you to be comfortable with.