Cesar Millan Dog Whisperer

i think he uses a few adverse methods as apposed to positive training methods - i dont like his methods tho, i do like Dog Borstal and Its Me Or The Dog

theres quite a good article here http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/opinion/31derr.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

I don't find Cesar Millan's methods to be cruel, I really enjoy the programme.I think sometimes people don't like it when he forces a dog to confront a fear, such as the toaster popping up episode. I wish I could get him to come and see my dog who is scared of just about everything (carrier bags, umberellas, cushions, newspapers.............) She is also not to be trusted around other dogs as she attacks (out of fear).

I have watched plenty of Cesar Milan programmes and i have never seem him use violence towards a dog. I have never seen a dog 'frightened' by him.
Exercise, discipline and affection sound like good common sense to me - and not just for dogs!

heccus, I can't imagine what shows you've been watching then. That is pretty much the only techinque CM has. Here's a a random youtube link for you. Watch it WITHOUT the sound first.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gwFeSlsjFHA

He holds the dog off the ground by a choke collar, and pins her down by her neck. Watch it closely and you will see she isn't jumping up (which is how many people see it initially) he is hauling her up by the choker around her neck. At the very least she is going to have a bruised neck and throat after this, at worse he could break her neck.

When he pins her, don't be under any illusion as to how hard he is pressing to keep her down either. He makes it look like it's barely a touch, but you can see him press his whole weight on her. By the time she's still her eyes are rolling and she's frothing, both indicators of severe stress.

Yes it's true that other dogs do do this (roll a dog and pin it on it's back) but only if they intend to kill it. So it's like holding a gun to a person's head if they don't do as they are told.

On top of all that, the dog wasn't even being aggressive in the first place, she's showing frustration, but also showing signs that she wants to greet the other dog, not kill it. What she needs is the chance to learn some meet and greet manners, not to be yanked around and pinned to the floor.

He also set the situation up by having the other dog walk straight up head on. He could have avoided that and gone straight into parallel walking, starting at a distance and then closing the gap. But then he wouldn't have had a chance to manhandle the dog, and that would have made for a boring TV show.

It's a pity it finishes when it does as well. I'd like to have seen more of the walking afterwards. As always 'Daddy' is being very submissive, avoiding eye contact with the other dog, ears back, etc. All CMs talk about Daddy being a dominant dog is BS, everything about his posture and body language says appeasement.

But say you did decide to follow this training route with this dog, it would mean the owner keeping up this regime. Aside from the obvious risk that an owner less experienced than CM is likely to end up bitten if they roll a dog like that. All the dog is learning is not to react. In the meantime, everytime it sees another dog something nasty happens to it (it gets pinned to the ground). She now has a good reason to start being scared of dogs, and will quickly move from frustration at not being able to interact appropriately, to fear aggression. Which is a much harder problem to work on.

tiamai_d: I don't agree with many of the techniques used on dog borstal either, for the same reasons as I don't agree with CMs. Rattle bottles can work, but they can also make things much much worse. Why risk it, when you can get the same results from say, clicker training, without the risk? I also know several trainers who have been left to pick up the pieces of dogs who were left in a worse state by dog borstal than when they started. Of course you won't see that on television.

The pack leader and dominance stuff was discredited long ago. The original science it was based on was so flawed that the theories derived from it were nonsense. Even some of it's greatest supporters (e.g. John Fisher) have since done a u-turn on it.

I am not my dog's leader, I do not dominate him in anyway. I have trained him to be obedient with positive training. Everything I do goes against the rules of pack theory, yet he still does as I ask. He will let me do things he dislikes, even let me hurt him (e.g. when he has sore ears that need cleaning). If pack theory were correct, that shouldn't be possible.

So in one way I would agree with doing whatever works for your dog, because for most dogs it doesn't matter what approach you follow. As long as you are consistent and clear about what you want from them, they will learn, and they will behave as you ask.

On the other hand I disagree with that approach, because it allows people to continue to abuse dogs and call it 'training'. I also disagree with it because it doesn't address what happens if it doesn't work. With positive training the worst that will happen is that the dog either doesn't learn or learns something irrelevant. Which is the owner's cue that they need to make their instructions clearer.

With punishment based training when things go wrong they can go very wrong indeed, and there's a good chance someone one (or another dog) will end up bitten as a result. And if that training involves hurting a dog or terrifying them into submission, then as far as I am concerned that's abuse not training.

That made me cry actually...poor dog.