Rather than pluck chapter and verse, which would take too much space, I'll just try to break this down a bit before the topic gets overly blurred. For every directive there is rationale. You have objectives for conditioning to pressure that you don't appear to understand, so let's start there.
Each dog has its own threshold; its tolerance for pressure and still function in a stable, reliable manner. When you're starting out you don't know what that is with any given dog. But if you desire to end up with a trained dog that will function with a high degree of reliability, even when they are distracted, or when they feel overwhelmemed by any sort of pressure, you will need to condition them to do so.
Also, by going through the pressure conditioning process you find two important things that will help you work effectively with your dog, and not worry that you are applying too much pressure routinely. One is finding the dog's threshold, so you know roughly what level is going to be so high that it will destabilize the dog. There isn't anything constructive about overwhelming the dog with pressure. But you do want to be able to bring the heat in those hopefully rare moments when a defiant dog has dug in his heels on an issue.
The other benefit gained through this conditioning process is determining the dogs normal operating level. That is nearly always far below the dog's threshold, but is an amount the dog consistently notices, and is ample to cause the change in behavior you were seeking. That brings us to a review of the chief reason for using pressure at all; to change behavior.
The reason there is no formula for reading your dog in any book, or on any video is that there can't be. Each dog is individual, and has its own reads. I provide general guidelines in both sources. But, generally, what you're looking for at threshold is that this amount of pressure is preceived by this dog as too great to remain stable and function properly in resonse to command. That level of pressure will hopefully not every be reached again for that dog, and you can make your corrections and perform forcing at a much lower level. But those levels will be different for each dog.
Does that help at all?
Evan
