No worries, Loujo! Everyone has their preferred training methods. I think it depends what best suits you and your dog.
While that is true, I think it is important to know the reasons
why different training techniques work, and the potential risk associated with each one
The use of a loud noise, or squirt of water, to interrupt unwanted behaviour are known as "adversives" - the dog stops doing something because something bad happens when it does
The risk with adversive training techniques (especially with bright dogs) is that they learn that the adversive (bad thing) doesn't happen
when you're not there; so all you do is teach them to "hide"the behaviour you don't like
Alternatively, positive training techniques reward good behaviours, and ignore bad ones - the theory is that rewarded behaviour is reinforced, and ignored behaviour is slowly eliminated, as there is not any benefits for the dog
A self-rewarding behaviour - such as counter-surfing, or ignoring a recall for instance, is more difficult to eliminate
but it can be achieved by preventing the dog being rewarded while you train an alternative behaviour - such as the use of a long line while training a recall - which is much kinder than the use of an adversive, imo
