Thank you Ramble, a very well thought out post :smt001

For my part, I do have direct experience of working with a dog and his owners who had originally been taught by a TV trainer. Can`t say who as the owners are not here to give their perspective directly however due to methods used which they were taught and followed to the letter, their dog was increasing in dog aggressiveness, was not at all confident in himself, and there was a clear barrier of trust between the family and the dog. The dogs personality was actually quite suppressed when I first met him, [ a Staffie ].
Much of their life together, from what I felt and understood from talking things through with them, was pretty much a chore and disappointment from lack of closeness between them.

I worked with them on the issues, got rid of the previously taught methods, the dog aggression decreased dramatically over a matter of a few weeks, [ there are at least two other people on this forum who personally saw the difference each time he came to training ], and this dog can now do agility regardless of other dogs there no matter how close to ring side or how noisy they are when he is training, [ and yes he is off lead for it ], and he has actually become pals with some of the other dogs.
He can now go off lead for walks, does not retaliate when other dogs get in his face unexpectedly, has fantastic recall which is vital for an exceptionally powerful dog with his previous issues, can sleep on the bed with his owners, [ and yes happily gets off when they want him too ].
Their whole relationship dynamic is now happy, relaxed, and what they were all missing for far too long because of that trainer and the methods used.

I will stress, the success with this dog is due to him having owners who listened carefully and applied things properly, which is part of how I know they also applied the previously taught methods exactly as they were taught to, they are extremely meticulous that way. The reason they kept persevering with the previous methods for so long was because they trusted the other trainer and thought that trainer must be right because of length of experience.
Thankfully they were open to a different perspective so once the flaws in the previous methods, and how they were impacting on their dog, were explained they could see totally why problems were persisting and things were not going the right way for them and their dog.

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Just caught this, no problem at all Patch and thanks for your nice comment about my post!

I think your comments illustrate exactly what I was speaking about...