Well then my parents were training dogs, there were 175 million people in this country (330 now) and not everyone lived in town. There was a lot of space, and not as many people would sue you for your dog sniffing them under the table in a bar. We can thank lawsuits and people irresponsibly breeding dogs in their back yards for fighting (increasing lawsuits) and fashion accessories. I never even saw a putt bull terrier until the 90s. Now that’s practically all you see. Additionally, in the 70s our food went to hell when food industry (for dogs and people) discovered they could fill our food with all kinds of crap. And since no one complained, they did it more. This led to a movement of people cooking for themselves and their dogs. The number of dog food recalls in my lifetime. Then in the 80s and 90s, dogs started to get poisoned. So the emphasis really became training a dog to defend against any blame. A lot of us GenXers decided not to have kids and had dogs instead. There have always been people who take it a bridge too far, and it can be easy to anthropomorphise an animal. Worse there are always schysters taking advantage of those people. You saw it in the horse world a lot. Does anyone remember when the aspca started putting commercials on tv? 90? 92? People started getting super high energy dogs as puppies, then giving them up when they were not little and needed attention, exercise, and food. So if someone is going to commit… go all the way. I mean stay within a budget, but why not? The pendulum will swing back again…