Name: Dog training wars.

Age: Puppy to 14 months, and beyond.

Appearance: Aggressive.

Is this about dogs fighting? No, it’s the trainers who are fighting.

What are they fighting about? There are two camps: “positive” trainers, and “balanced” trainers. The former rely on rewards, the latter on a range of disciplinary stimuli, which might extend to prong collars that dig into a dog’s neck when it pulls.

What do the balanced ones say about the positive ones? “It’s all treats, treats, treats, so help me God,” the dog trainer Brian Lee told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s no different than giving your kid a BMW on his 16th birthday.”

And how do positive trainers address these allegations? “I kind of laugh at this whole idea that using treats in training is somehow going to spoil dogs,” says another dog trainer Victoria Stilwell.

I don’t see this getting resolved any time soon.…