If you have searched for a dog trainer in Melbourne lately, you have seen the words force free on half the websites you opened. It comes from a good instinct in owners, who do not want their dog hurt, and it is a fair promise from trainers. I get asked where I sit on it often enough that it is worth answering plainly.
What force-free actually means
Force free, at its simplest, is training without pain, fear or intimidation. No prong collars, no electric shock, no pinning a dog to the ground, no working a dog through terror to make a point. Most of the field has moved this way over the last twenty years, and that is a good thing. A dog learning while frightened is mostly learning that you are one more thing to be frightened of.
Where I agree with it
I do not train with fear, and I do not build behaviour on pain. The whole reason I started down this road was a dog. Kirin was trained for assistance work, beautifully obedient by design, and still not suited to placement, because obedience that depends on the handler delivering a cue and a reward on time falls apart at the exact moment the handler cannot deliver either. Someone in pain, mid medical episode, hands full with a child. If a method only works when you are calm, prepared and holding food, it is not really the dog that has changed. That insight is older than any label, and it is where my method begins.
Where I work differently
There are two places I part company with how force free usually gets practised.
The first is food. A lot of force free training leans hard on it. Mark the behaviour, pay the behaviour, repeat. It works, and for plenty of dogs and owners it is enough. But a dog worked entirely on food is a dog whose attention you are renting, and the rent comes due at the worst possible moment, when something in the environment is more interesting than what is in your pouch. I would rather build a dog that chooses you because of the relationship, not because of the chicken.
The second is correction. I am not anti correction the way the label often asks you to be. A clear, well timed piece of information that says not that, given to a dog that is not frightened, is not cruelty. It is communication. A correction half a second late is a completely different message than one on time, and most of what owners call my dog will not listen is a timing problem rather than a kindness problem. Clear edges, given calmly, actually lower a dog's stress, because a dog that knows where the lines are does not have to keep testing for them.
Why I would rather not describe myself by my tools
There is no best tool, only the right tool for a particular dog and a particular person. The best trainer is not the one who owns the most equipment, and not the one who has sworn off the most either. It is the one who reads this dog and this owner, picks what fits the pair, and teaches the person to use it well. Two dogs that both lunge can need two different tools, because they lunge with different muscles and go home to different people. A label that decides the tool before it has met the dog is working backwards.
What I actually lead with
Not a tool at all. The relationship, and the dog's needs. A dog whose needs are met and whose body language is understood behaves well without being told. Chase obedience first and you get a performative dog, responsive when commanded and opportunistic the moment you look away. Build the relationship and the structure first, and the behaviour falls out of it on its own. So the first thing I teach an owner is not a list of commands. It is how to read their dog, and how to run a day built from four clear modes that make the good decision the easy one.
That is what "let your dog be a dog" means, and it is not the soft thing it sounds like. The dog gets no vote on toileting inside or lunging at a passing car. What it gets is clear structure, met needs, and genuine time to just be an animal. Most households run as a boot camp or a free for all. I sit in the middle on purpose.
So what do you call it
If you need a label, relationship first is closer to the truth than force free. But the honest answer is that I care more about the outcome than the camp. The dog I am trying to build is not an obedient one. It is a relaxed one, a dog that does not need to be told, because that is what almost every owner who comes to me is actually asking for, even when they ask for obedience first.
If that is the kind of dog you are after, the private training program is where it starts, and the reactive dog training page is the place to begin if barking and lunging are the immediate problem.