RE: Puppy Tips 101 – House and Crate Training
And I couldn't agree with you more. We have dogs on our route that wear 'bark collars' and bark through it. You can see them flinch. It really pisses me off, because dogs can be lovingly trained to stop their barking. Sign of a very lazy owner.
To be perfectly clear: I don't agree with shock collar training with the one exception: Fast and dirty for life threatening consequences. Years ago I met a bird dog trainer that used a shock collar to train dogs to not be interested in other species. I never agreed with that, and my bird dogs always figured that out in short order. If I didn't shoot they soon weren't interested in that species. My Springer could tell the difference between a hen and rooster pheasant. The Shorthair would set hens, but show her disgust with me for not shooting :) After a couple in a row she would come and walk right beside me for a while. If I didn't like what she set, I could find my own :)
Dogs are really intelligent, probably more so than most people I know! haha They pick up on our non-verbal keys as well as verbal commands. we just need to learn how to communicate with them properly. It sounds like you have always been very in tune with your dogs!
I once had a conversation with a 'dog' trainer and they said something that has always stuck with me... " to train a dog, you first need to train their human".