Why are so many goofy, and sometimes cruel, dog training ideas spread all over the internet? It is even worse when these bad ideas are enforced by sanctioning authorities and committees, such as breeding, competition, evaluation, media, law enforcement, military, or governmental organizations.
“Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which in the broad sense can be called imitation. If a scientist hears or reads about a good idea, he passes it on, to his colleagues and students, he mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on it can be said to propagate itself spreading from brain to brain. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind, you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.” – Richard Dawkins
It can take decades to discredit old, bad ideas. A very short time to bring on bad new ideas. And sometimes bad old ideas are resurrected as being “new” ideas.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln
There is good science and junk science. There are well founded ways of working with dogs. There are other ways that potentially will harm everything you do with a dog. There are those with good motives, and those with bad motives.
Don’t be an adopter of new miracle and untested, or old and discredited, dog training methods. I’ve written numerous articles on this subject for you to read.
Plan accordingly.