Most humans are schizophrenic to dogs.
You cannot put the two things together for the same reason that many people screw up their relationship with a dog by training it... they cannot distinguish between their emotional state and their operational state and this can really wreck a cooperative dog.

When your emotional state interferes with your logical state you start producing confusing body language signals, just as you have described. I can train a dog with methods that the owner cannot and do it without problems or hurting the dog in any way. That is because I can be absolutely unemotional and impersonal about some things I do and the dogs accept what I do as a matter of course. The most difficult task is applying the correction impersonally to your own dog, if you do it doesn't bother the dog, if you are emotional it does bother the dog.

Dogs are the ultimate mafia... "It isn't personal, it's just business". When you are impersonal and objective about a correction procedure the dogs never have a problem with what you do. When you add emotions to corrections you have a big problem, whatever you do is personal to the dog and it affects the relationship between you and the dog. What is most important here is what the dog perceives.

When a dog is corrected impersonally it treats the correction just like a physical obstacle, it walks around it and doesn't bang into it the next time around. The dog doesn't have an emotional response to the correction and displays, and probably feels, absolutely no discomfort when the prong collar grabs it's neck. But when you are emotional about pulling on that lead you are getting personal and then the dog feels a lot of pain and will react with fear or confusion.

Most of us train dogs with emotions and teach with emotions and so we cannot be objective about our corrections. Dogs are fairly stupid, but very emotional, little people. I can yank on a lead and apply a prong collar correction to a dog without emotional impact, the dog will respond minimally and without emotions and we go on to the next lesson. If I deliver the yank on the lead while I am emotionally connected with the dog the dog feels more pain and has a much more emotional response... now the correction isn't business, it's personal. To effectively use the carrot and stick approach you have to minimize the negative impact of the stick by being impersonal and detached from the dog and then you maximize the carrot by being personal and emotional when giving positive reinforcement.

You cannot apply negative reinforcement to a dog in an emotional manner without adversely affecting the dog. You should not apply positive reinforcement to a dog in an impersonal manner because it doesn't do much good. Your feelings must match your body language or the dog will get confused. Remember that you cannot lie to a dog, the dog can recognize a problem and become upset, as soon as your body language displays a conflict.

In training any animal where there is a social relationship between you and the animal the biggest problem with corrections is that you correct with emotion and it has a great impact on the animal. To train satisfactorily with such an animal you have to ynchronize your actions and emotions to reward emotionally and correct impersonally. With uncooperative dogs, those that cannot form a social bond with you, your emotional state in training corrections is irrelevant, they don't affect the dog one way or the other.

This is also the case with deprived socialization, the dog raised in isolation during it's first year is also unable to form a bond with you and a dog with kennel syndrome is impervious to your emotional state and ignores some of your body language.

This is why some people have no problems with a pinch collar or whacking a dog to correct it and their dogs don't show much reaction to the corrections. When other people with an emotional reaction to something even think of yanking on a pinch collar the dog displays agonized and exaggerated responses.

Is it cruelty to the dog? ... it is only if you think it is. Your emotional state tells the dog what is cruel and what is not. You can be emotional and cause as much pain with your voice as you can with a whip.

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Updated 15th Oct 2002