Natural Vs Learned Dog Trainers

I have met some very intuitive animal people in my life. They grew up with animals, such as on a farm or because they were always rescuing anything from a frog to a horse. I found their insights to be very useful,  especially when I first started out. They weren't bound by a structured framework of perception and saw things that I had to be more present to see. 

But, at a certain point, they came up with diagnoses that attributed human characteristics to dogs. Then things veered into the ditch. When someone thinks a dog has a motive, you start hearing stuff like this: my dog is angry with me because 2 days ago she didn't get to go on a car ride, so today she is got back at me by pooping on the sofa. 

I also see this kind of thinking from novice dog owners.

There are dog trainers like this, too. I see it a lot with many of those "dog whisperer" types, or many of these social media dog "trainers", who come up with the most ridiculous explanations of dog behavior. 

There is a point, especially if you are actively training dogs for others, or even someone who is going to manage others and dogs in animal shelters, that you are responsible now to educate yourself. You need to do the hard work and start cracking open some books and learning from actual experts in the field. Those mysterious forces that you think you see don't exist, and you are starting to cause harms. 

If you don't want to work that hard, then don't train dogs for others. 

Just sayin'

Plan accordingly.