One of the most relevant ideas to people interested in understanding dog behavior is the specific settings and conditions that affect how a dog will think/react. Just like us, they are living breathing things that have personalities that affect how they respond to things in their environment. As professional dog trainers, this is one of the most important concepts for us to master to actually help our clients solve their problems with their dogs.
Context is the reason why so many "board and trains" fail, because the dog's perception of the training environment is so dramatically different than the one they live in at home. We often never get to see the full scope of our client's problems, because their dogs never fully "unpack" their baggage with us.
There are many things we can do to affect this in a way that makes the training environment as close to feeling like home as possible. At The Raja, we often consider dog to dog socialization an integral part of this process when possible. The idea of cynopraxis or holistically training the dog to habituate appropriately into a group of dogs can be a powerful therapeutic tool. Of course, this affects the context of how they perceive our environment because being around other dogs affects their energy and how they respond about things that would provoke a more territorial response at home.
In the end, our job as dog trainers is to facilitate the solution that will work at home for the owners and their dogs by anticipating and training the dogs in a way that they will still respond in a situation that is often significantly higher arousal for the dog.
If I believe this to be a very relevant idea that will affect the outcome of the training (often the case with the dogs we would describe as shy or nervous), I will go out of my way to bring the dog home for an in person lesson. I have been in so many situations where this completely unravels the entire training plan that I recognize how imperative it is for me to be there to help the owner troubleshoot to not lose faith in the plan. Often if I've thought things through enough, this first time is enough to "break" the old habits so to speak.
In the end, our training has to unravel long periods of problematic behaviors being practiced by the dog, so to assume that process is automatic is usually the sign of an inexperienced trainer. Often times their mantra is, "Well the dog listened to me, so it must be you doing something wrong". This can stick the owner in a loop where they become so frustrated that the problems never actually get solved until hopefully they find someone who can break the problem down into a more nuanced solution.