Any dog owner can be considered a traditional home trainer.
Traditional home trainers don’t follow a named, predefined training methodology. They’re guessing at what has to happen in their relationship with their dog. It’s often shoot from the hip, guessing, patchworked, opinions on how to make things work with their dogs. Traditional home trainers will often employ coercive collars, which smacks of quick fix approaches and quick fix mentalities. This immediately goes against the common sense understanding that voluntary behaviors and coercion are necessarily mutually exclusive.
At best, most traditional home trainers create working relationships with their dogs that are functional yet resign their dogs to living in a not-relaxed state, spring loaded just below their threshold, in a constant state of stress, though that stress is rarely acknowledged nor discussed. That working state is one in which the relationship has sufficient, rudimentary structure which seems to work for both the human and for the dog, although the dog’s energy levels are high, the dog can easily be triggered by small changes of excitement, their noses are warm and dry, and their mouths are closed, physiologically indicating levels of stress. They breathe through their noses; the relaxed, open mouth breathing most relaxed dogs are going to be exhibiting isn’t present. Noses are warm and dry—the nose has shut down, and ears become hypersensitive, introducing its own collections of problems.
Much like traditional trainers, traditional home trainers operate under the assumption that the dog needs to be fixed. Their models assume a monolithic dog. Traditional home trainers often claim “I know my dog.” Their approaches use an abundance of narratives over the description of behaviors. There is typically a preference for quick fixes. There is often some level of coercion used. Many traditional home trainers are impatient.
Many traditional home trainers believe that obedience can be taught, even though there is no known measure for obedience.
Traditional Trainers are related to Traditional Home Trainers.