About Us

Hi — I’m Jordan Reyes, and I’m glad you found your way here.

Like most people who end up building an entire site around positive reinforcement dog training, I didn’t plan to. I started out with a dog who ignored every command I gave her, a stack of contradictory training advice, and a growing suspicion that most of what’s out there about “dominance” and “showing them who’s boss” was doing more harm than good.

That instinct turned out to be backed by the actual science. The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior’s position statement on humane dog training states plainly that reward-based methods should be used for all dog training, and that there’s no evidence aversive methods work better. That’s the exact shift this whole site, and every positive reinforcement dog training guide on it, is built around.

Everything changed the day I stopped trying to correct my way to a well-behaved dog and started rewarding my way there instead. Within weeks the difference wasn’t subtle. My dog wasn’t just more obedient — she was calmer, more confident, and clearly happier. That shift is the entire reason Dog Guide Diary exists.

Who’s Behind Dog Guide Diary

I’m not a certified trainer with letters after my name, and I’d rather tell you that upfront than pretend otherwise. What I bring instead is hundreds of hours actually doing this: retraining my own dog from scratch with positive reinforcement, reading the behavioral research closely enough to explain it in plain English (see The Science Behind Positive Reinforcement for the studies behind the method), and testing gear the slow way, side-by-side, over weeks, not a five-minute unboxing. Every guide on this site reflects that, not a professional credential, but real repetition and a genuine stake in getting it right.

What Positive Reinforcement Dog Training Is About

This site exists to give first-time dog owners that same shift — without years of trial and error. Every article, printable, and gear recommendation here is built on one principle: reward what you want to see more of, and skip the fear, force, and guesswork entirely. If you’re brand new to the method, What Is Positive Reinforcement? is the shortest path to understanding it, and The Complete Beginner’s Guide is the deepest one.

What You’ll Find Here

• Step-by-step guides for first commands and daily routines, crate training, and leash reactivity
• Honest, hands-on gear testing — including 90 days spent testing 12 different treat pouches so you don’t have to guess which one holds up
• Free printable trackers, cheat sheets, and starter kits to keep your training consistent
• Seasonal and situational guidance for the moments training gets hard — fireworks, holidays, new environments, big life changes

Our Approach: Compassionate Authority

That means clear, confident guidance — never at your dog’s expense. No dominance theory. No shock collars. No shame if your dog isn’t “getting it” as fast as you hoped. Just methods that work, explained simply enough to use today.

How Gear Gets Tested and Recommended

Nothing gets recommended here after a single use. Treat pouches, clickers, and harnesses get run through actual daily training sessions, usually several competing options at once, over weeks, before any of them get called a winner. When a printable or tracker exists on this site, it exists because I built it for my own training first and cleaned it up for everyone else afterward. If a product genuinely doesn’t hold up, that gets said directly instead of quietly left out.

Why Trust What’s Here

I don’t recommend gear I haven’t actually used. When an article says a treat pouch “won,” it won because it was tested side-by-side with eleven others over 90 real days — not because a brand paid for the placement. When a printable exists, it’s because I needed that exact tool myself and built it. That’s the standard for everything published here.

Have a question, a success story, or a dog who’s stumped you? I’d genuinely love to hear it — head to the Contact page and say hello.

You can also follow along on Pinterest, where we post training tips, gear picks, and printable resources regularly.