> the key to training a dog is not to "punish" them when they do something wrong
And yet getting caught in the act of doing something wrong and being "punished" (harsh words in the case of a dog) is remarkable effective, particularly in combination with positive reinforcement for the things done well.
> We adopted a puppy a little more than a year ago and this was the exact advice we were given for how to train her
This works remarkably well until you have a dog for which it doesn't work. We've adopted several dogs - some as puppies, some grown - and found that most of the time, for most of the animals, these practices work. But sometimes -and for some dogs - they don't work at all, or with greatly reduced effectiveness.
It depends on what drives the dog and that dog's personality.
> Our baby is only six months old so we'll have to report back in a decade as to whether this approach works well with kids too. :)
Yes. And no. It depends entirely on the personality of your child - and to a limited extent, your own. That's the frustrating thing about these kinds of articles (as well as dog training articles). They position themselves with such authority that we seem to be expected to believe that they're handing down a Great Universal Truth*.
It's not. In my opinion, there is only one - living things (dog or child) are complicated creatures. There are so many variables unique to each living thing in your care that there's not much room left for The One True Way.
[1] My favorite of these is a popular dog trainer who - with all sincerity - says that when you pull on a dog's collar, the dog will pull back because it's physics. The dog must provide an equal and opposite reaction. It's amazing how many people buy into the rationale. What the trainer advocates is perfectly fine in many cases - but I can't get past the pseudo-scientific non-logic.