The framework our training curriculum is built on has five steps, and the first one is a phone call to a veterinarian. Before a training plan starts at all, the professional ensures that any indicators for possible medical, nutritional, or health factors are addressed by a licensed veterinarian, because a dog that objects to having its hips touched is not a training problem yet.
It is called the Humane Hierarchy, and the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers adapted it from Dr. Susan Friedman's original for use as a standard of care. It fixes an order: you do not move down a step until the one above it has genuinely not worked.
The order is the whole lesson:
Health first. Rule out pain, illness and nutrition, with a vet, before anything is trained.
Then the room. Arrange the environment so the behaviour cannot happen: a gate, a different route, something better to be busy with.
Then reinforcement. Pay the dog for what you do want, with something it values more than whatever the unwanted behaviour has been paying it.
Then the harder tools. Manage the behaviour, live with it, bring in another professional, or take away something the dog wants.
Last, and this is where we stop. Adding something the dog finds unpleasant sits at the bottom of the list, underneath every other option.
Most of the advice a new owner is handed arrives at that bottom step first, and when it does not work the dog gets the blame. Knowing the order gives you somewhere to start that is not simply louder than last time.
It is the least glamorous page in the curriculum and the one you will lean on longest, because it answers the question every owner actually turns up with: what do I try first.
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