I have my model associations set up correctly and data is being bought back the way I want it to when I call the find method from the corresponding controller. However when I load in the model from another controller and call model->find it only returns model data and not its associated data.
I have tried a few things to resolve this including $this->Model->Behaviors->load('Containable') but still no luck.
$this->Model->find('all' , array('recursive' => -1));
I thankfully found the issue as embarrassing as it was. When i was loading my model i was not prefixing it with the plugin name.
So yea right... if you want to assure your Containable associations will be inherited when you load in your model from an alternative source (non-corresponding controller, shell class) you have to ensure you prefix the model name with it's plugin name if applicable of course.