I started teaching 2 new obedience classes last week. All in all about 20 new students between the two classes. We have a good mixture of dogs in the class....everything from an English Mastiff and German Shepherds to papillions and little wire haired dachshunds. My emphasis will always be on fair and consistent training with dogs. If you show your dog repeatedly exactly what you expect until you are very sure that they know what to do, then it is fair to hold them to account for failing to be obedient. Corrections do not need to be violent or mean spirited but they do need to fair and consistent. Dogs learn very well from informative negative reinforcement...the key being informative. They need to understand the exercise well enough so that the correction when issued actually teaches the dog to improve it's attention and to avoid the correction in the future. A negatively reinforced behaviour stands up very well and needs few reminders later on.
I feel strongly that in group classes a greater number of students are actually better able to understand this concept than many other types of dog training.
I base my training methods on Koehler method but have tempered it to be more like the Monks of New Skete. Their books and DVDs are excellent resource guides for anyone interested in learning more about dog training and I am a huge fan of their methods. I find it to be fair and kind to the dogs and yet very no nonsense in the approach. It is also very simple and easy to understand.
There are also huge benefits to using food in dog training but I feel that it is better left to competition dogs and trainers that have more experience with it's use. The over use of food in training can produce it's own set of problems including dogs that practice resource guarding their owners. This is a pretty easy problem to develop in a dog and most people are ill prepared to deal with it or even recognise the problem. However if a clicker trainer program is phased in at the end of a correction based program, I believe that this is a very sturdy and solid experience for all competition dogs and pet dogs in particular.
Think of your relationship with your dogs as that of a benevolent boss. This is your favorite person to work with. You know that you have to do your job but your boss makes working with him/her so pleasant that you can never say no. These bosses are usually fair and consistent in nature.....and who would not want to work for them.