Some points of difference to some other trainers
The services I can offer at my full time training facility. You are not going to correct behavioural problems like reactivity to dogs by practicing basic obedience in your backyard like many trainers will have you doing. You need to get your dog around dogs in a controlled environment to manage and improve the issue. I have access to no less than 40 different dogs everyday at my full time training centre. So this means we can recreate the problem and work through it by implementing training techniques to get you managing your dog better.
My experience as a former Military Police Dog Handler and training thousands of dogs over the years as a professional dog trainer dealing with all levels of behaviour. One of the most common is high level reactivity with very aggressive dogs. Allot of trainers claim they have the answers but in reality they don't. A highly promoted method of training is force free or positive only. This can get great results for some areas of training but when dealing with certain behavioural problems in a distracting real world environments it will fail you many times and leave you not knowing how to control your dog with other dogs or people. This can end up with people and dogs getting hurt because an owner wasn't given the right skills to control their dog.
Force free/Positive only VS Balanced dog training
It's unfortunate that we even have to label dog training this way. Truth is both styles have tremendous value and can help your dog to learn. Force free is committed to the idea that everything your dog learns can be taught and improved without using any verbal or physical corrections even when dealing with aggressive dogs.
Balanced trainers like myself are often labelled as cruel, mean, dangerous etc. I am sure there are some trainers out there that would validate these beliefs. However there are bad apples in all industries of trade. The vast majority like myself use training techniques that are going to help your dog. If we can be 100% force free and positive we will be. But the reality is sometimes there needs to be a verbal or physical corrections given to help some dogs modify their behaviour, especially when dealing with highly reactive, dangerous dog's. We need to remember a correction can be very small or big. People that don't like balanced trainers will have you believe it is always big and painful and this simply isn't true. Regardless of whether the correction is verbal, physical lead pressure or body language it is only ever enough to help the dog understand right from wrong. We need to remember correcting your dogs behaviour is something that can protect them from conflict with dogs or people. I feel that raising your child without helping them understand what is dangerous or rude behaviour would be a hindrance to them developing into a well balanced polite adult, I believe this is not different to your dog.
Our dogs need educating from a young puppy what is acceptable behaviour in all areas of life from home and in public. By raising our dogs like this we will have a lot less dangerous, aggressive and bad mannered dogs.
I respect that as owner you need to be comfortable with who trains your dog. I just ask you to keep and open mind to what works and not get caught up in the opinions of people who aren't well versed and dog training, or by watching 10sec of footage and not seeing the end result. Understanding the full story is vital to making and educated opinion on anything.
Ask yourself this if your child was screaming and threatening another child who was being nice to them, would you redirect with a distraction or tell them to stop because it's unacceptable behaviour?
I realise that's a simplistic way to break it down but this is short is the difference between the two styles.
