[gusecrync]

Well where do you live? Do some digging through some of the performance dog training forums and try to locate someone with a good reputation and results. Look up Michael Ellis and the Leerburg kennels forums. I bet they can help you find someone appropriate to your needs close to you. I really like their training approach on some things and would absolutely let my dog go through their courses. However they themselves are probably not a realistic option unless you're looking to spend quite a lot of money. The websites they run have tons of useful information for free and very good DVD's for sale, I own 3 myself and they're very informative and clear cut.

I have no idea who JR dog training is but I would not immediately lump all trainers who use electric collars as bad. I use one with my dog and it is extremely effective when used CORRECTLY. That's a huge point. Any training tool can be abused and unfortunately that one is about the easiest to abuse, however the way I use it is purely an attention getting mechanism. I used it as a real correction exactly once when my dog was refusing to obey my command to "leave it" when confronting (aka going apeshit) at another dog that was safely confined in it's own yard. Even then at high drive, about half power was needed and since then the dog doesn't refuse that command ever. He knew what he was supposed to do, blatantly refused to do it, and was corrected for that refusal. IMO this is the only reason to ever use one (and it is usually only done at the lowest setting that gets the slightest reaction from the dog). It didn't shut him down to the point he was cowed and refused to come to me or refuse play or take food reward, it simply let him know I was not going to let him continue on like that without a negative result. If you see someone shocking the crap out of dogs when teaching commands don't even consider them. Anyway enough of that little detour...

I also understood completely well the dog in the picture was not his father. I was going off the fact you mentioned his father looked exactly like it but with larger muscles.