Victoria Stilwell Wants Us to See the Dog, Not Just the Behavior

Key sections

• What her organizations say
• The argument she is actually making
• Does the evidence follow her there?
• Why trainers still disagree
• What we still want to know

Victoria Stilwell's dog-training philosophy asks us to look closely at how we reach that moment, not only at the behavior visible at the end. We followed that idea, the difference between a dog who looks compliant and a dog who feels safe, and found a question that reaches far beyond any single trainer.

A thirty-second transformation can look convincing. We wanted to know what research and professional guidance say about how the dog learns and feels.

We have not interviewed her, and nothing here implies her participation or endorsement.

Let’s begin with Stilwell’s work and organizations

To understand the voice behind the advice, let’s first look at the work and organizations attached to her name. The Victoria Stilwell Academy for Dog Training & Behavior describes her as a "Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC), TV personality, author and public speaker," and lists her as Founder and President. The Academy states she "founded VSA with the mission of educating, engaging and empowering new dog trainers so that together we can reach more people and their pets, spreading the benefits of positive training."

It describes her media profile as star of international series including It's Me or the Dog and Greatest American Dog, "through which she reaches audiences in over 100 countries."

The Academy is describing its own founder. We could not confirm her CDBC credential in a public register, so that credential remains unverified in our reporting.

Her work also includes several training businesses. She is Founder and President of the Academy, chief executive of the Victoria Stilwell Positively Dog Training network of licensed trainers, and Editor-in-Chief of Positively.com. She has written books on training and hosts a long-running podcast.

Readers should know that her work includes both advocating for reward-based training and selling education in it. That context is useful when weighing any trainer’s advice.

The argument she is actually making

Her central question is how the dog experiences the lesson, beyond the visible result. Writing in Dogs Today Magazine in September 2026, Hayley O'Keeffe reported Stilwell warning owners about training advice circulating on social media.

The line that stayed with us is the one about credentials:

"A large following is not a qualification, and a dramatic transformation captured in a 30-second video tells you nothing about how that dog is feeling."

A dog may stop doing something without feeling safer or understanding what to do instead. Stilwell asks owners to look beyond the visible result and consider the dog’s experience.

On the substance of those videos, she argues that suppressing behavior can create an impressive “after” without addressing why the behavior happened. Her position is blunt: stillness can be fear, not learning.

O'Keeffe reported that Stilwell urges owners to be wary of trainers claiming a dog must be dominated, frightened into submission, or that the owner must become the "alpha."

The most useful context is also the least glamorous: Britain's dog-training industry remains unregulated, so anyone may call themselves a trainer. The UK Dog Behaviour and Training Charter is one attempt to give owners a science-led standard in a field where the job title itself proves very little.

Her Academy offers training education in a field where the title “dog trainer” itself gives owners little assurance.

Does the evidence follow her there?

Professional guidance supports Stilwell’s emphasis on reward-based training. The US experiments ask narrower questions, and their results need to stay attached to the tasks that were actually tested.

The professional position. The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB) recommends reward-based training and rejects dominance-based explanations that treat force or intimidation as necessary. Its public guidance also gives owners a practical way to evaluate a trainer.

A US reward-marker comparison offers one useful detail. Gilchrist and colleagues’ 2021 experiments found no consistent learning advantage from adding a clicker to food rewards. They tested new behaviors, not Stilwell’s program or a comparison with electronic collars.

Another US experiment gives us a different result. Johnson and Wynne’s 2024 lure-chasing study found its electronic-collar group stopped chasing while its tested food-reward groups did not. It also recorded shock-associated vocalizations, and the result did not transfer fully to a new arena. A short, specific experiment cannot settle general welfare or long-term household outcomes.

Why trainers still disagree

Despite that professional guidance, trainers continue to disagree about using corrections alongside rewards.

Some trainers call their approach “balanced,” combining rewards with corrections. They continue to use tools that AVSAB’s position excludes.

Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder, and trainer Mary Angilly argued against aversive methods in Psychology Today in September 2024. That is their published advocacy argument. It should be read alongside the US experiments, whose particular results cannot be replaced by a general claim about every method.

They briefly acknowledged the argument that electronic collars may be appropriate in expert hands, then dismissed it as a slippery slope. That is an advocacy piece written by people with a position, and readers should weigh it as one.

The US lure study means we cannot say that no peer-reviewed experiment has found an advantage for an aversive approach. Equally, its narrow result does not establish that electronic collars are generally safer or better, or overturn AVSAB’s professional position. The experimental finding and the welfare judgment remain distinct.

One widely repeated claim turned out to be wrong. England did not ban remote electronic shock collars in February 2024. The proposed regulations never came into force. Current government strategy still describes a ban as something to consult on later in the present Parliament; Wales already has one.

What We Still Want To Know

Her credential. We could not verify the CDBC against the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants’ (IAABC) register. That is a limitation of our research rather than a finding about her, and we would like to close it.

Which findings transfer? The US studies examined reward markers and lure chasing, rather than controlled treatment of serious aggression. Those results do not answer whether a particular approach is appropriate for an individual dog with a serious behavior problem.

What happens to dogs whose owners cannot afford a qualified trainer. The entire debate assumes access to professional help. Free video advice is easy to find, but qualified help may be out of reach. We want to understand what support those owners can use.

Long-term outcomes. Almost all the evidence we found measures training sessions or short trials. We located nothing following dogs over years by training method.

Whether anyone has measured the harm she describes. Her claim that social media training advice is producing worse outcomes is plausible and, as far as we found, unmeasured.

What a reader can take from this

Stilwell teaches and sells education in reward-based training. AVSAB’s professional guidance supports that approach. The US experiments add task-specific findings, including a result that complicates sweeping claims about relative performance. Her commercial role and the evidence limits both belong in the account.

Her most transferable contribution is not about any particular tool. It is the evaluation test: a large following is not a qualification, and a short video of a transformed dog tells you nothing about how that dog feels. That standard applies to every trainer a reader meets, including the ones her Academy certifies.

Questions worth carrying into any decision about a trainer:

• What credential do they hold, and who issued it? Training is unregulated in the UK and the US. Certifications are voluntary and vary enormously in rigor.
• What will they do if the dog does not comply? This is the question that actually separates approaches, rather than the words on the website.
• Does their stated method match the published position of veterinary behavior bodies? AVSAB's statements are public and written for owners.
• Do they have a commercial interest in the method they advocate? Usually yes, across every position in this debate. Context, not disqualification.
• Is a claimed legal position current? As the English regulations show, a widely repeated claim about what is banned can simply be wrong.

Something we would like the Pack to help us find.

Serious aggression is the question we most want to understand better. The US experiments discussed here examined learning with reward markers and stopping lure chasing, rather than treatment for dogs with a history of biting. Veterinary behaviorists and professionals working with those dogs: which studies help you choose a treatment plan?

We are also still looking for anyone who has followed dogs over years by training method. If that work exists, we would like to read it.

A NOTE FROM WATERS EDGE

We read the research, we talk to people who do this work, and we try to make complicated animal-health information easier to understand. What you're reading reflects how we've interpreted and organized what we found. It is educational , not veterinary advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment plan for your animal.

We're not perfect, and neither is the available research. Evidence changes, new work gets published, and what suits one animal may be wrong for another. Species, breed, age, weight and existing conditions all change the answer.

Use this as a starting point for your own reading and for the conversation with your veterinarian , particularly if your animal is on medication, is under treatment, has an existing condition, is pregnant, very young or very old, or if anything about their condition is changing quickly.