Cesar Millan Dog Whisperer

callywally

It is only a matter of time til someone trying to use these methods will get badly bitten. What happens to the dog then?
Try positive reward based methods not the quick fix that the cm offers.
Go to a good training class that uses reward based methods.
As it says on the programe dont try cm methods at home!

Spentit_3

callywally wrote: »

It is only a matter of time til someone trying to use these methods will get badly bitten. What happens to the dog then?
Try positive reward based methods not the quick fix that the cm offers.
Go to a good training class that uses reward based methods.
As it says on the programe dont try cm methods at home!

There is a lot to be said for positive reward based training methods but what about pack leadership? I would feel very sorry for the owner of a dominant powerful dog who was only advised on teaching sit, stay and heel. There is so much more to dog handling than teaching basic commands. People like Gwen Taylor talk about pack leadership and discipline too but perhaps the drama and 'Americanness' of Cesars show put some people off?

With regards to the KC Good Citizenship classes, I have never seen a dog distressed or hurt by being put in a long down. What other emergency measure could owners take that would not harm their dog?

callywally

Of course dogs need more than basic obedience training. my dogs are large guarding breeds and have done all kc good citizen awards bronze, silver and gold. As well as agility etc. I would not go to classes that recommend pinning a dog to the ground and have never been advised to do this to calm a dog down.
Ive owned dogs for over twenty years including rescues and large guarding breeds and have worked with dogs too, as well as other animals and I would never use some of the methods cm uses. I have seen him hold a dog down while holding another small dog that had been attacked by the first dog over the first dog to get the first dog to submit to the dog it had attacked. The look of terror on the small dog was very obvious. It was avoiding eye contact, turning its head away, lip smacking and shaking and yet cm says that by holding it above the first dog it was showing its 'dominance' over the first dog. dogs use body language far more than we realise and the first dog would have been well aware that the small dog was terrified. Nothing would have been gained by this and most likely the dog would have attacked the small dog again although of course this would not have been shown on tv.
Dominance is a word that is very ill used in the dog training world.
most problems are caused by the wrong people getting the wrong dogs and not putting in the time and effort needed to have a well balanced dog.
Of course some dogs have problems mainly caused by a poor upbringing.
Positive reward based methods are still the best way to go. If you have a problem dog go to a good trainer or behaviouist and if the problem is aggression use a basket type muzzle until the problem is sorted. in my opinion cm methods are cruel and unneccesary and give the impression that force and electric collars etc are a quick fix.

orlao

Spentit wrote: »

There is a lot to be said for positive reward based training methods but what about pack leadership? I would feel very sorry for the owner of a dominant powerful dog who was only advised on teaching sit, stay and heel. There is so much more to dog handling than teaching basic commands. People like Gwen Taylor talk about pack leadership and discipline too but perhaps the drama and 'Americanness' of Cesars show put some people off?

With regards to the KC Good Citizenship classes, I have never seen a dog distressed or hurt by being put in a long down. What other emergency measure could owners take that would not harm their dog?

I have a large dominant dog (Rott) and his basic puppy training was sit, stay, and most importantly recall..... with those basic tools you have control of your dog both at home and in public and any further training is just building on those basic skills but IMHO where a lot of people go wrong is that they don't put in the work and time required to train the very basic skills that allow you to go on and refine your training.

For instance once a dog knows sit and stay, it is very easy to teach a "bed" command so that visitors can come in the house without wearing the dog:rotfl: A good heel command means you don't go down the road at 90 miles an hour if the dog sees something while out (very MSE as it also saves a fortune on oesteopath bills when it's a large dog towing you)......a reliable recall means that you can walk your dog anywhere without worrying about losing it or getting abuse from other people. Any extra training above that level is a bonus but even at that basic level you have a dog that is a pleasure to have around and it can all be done without silly tricks or abuse just time and commitment.

Obviously, there are dogs with "issues" who need a lot more work to overcome their problems but in a lot of cases those problems were caused by people in the first place:mad:

pboae

Spentit wrote: »

There is a lot to be said for positive reward based training methods but what about pack leadership? I would feel very sorry for the owner of a dominant powerful dog who was only advised on teaching sit, stay and heel. There is so much more to dog handling than teaching basic commands. People like Gwen Taylor talk about pack leadership and discipline too but perhaps the drama and 'Americanness' of Cesars show put some people off?

As a scientific theory pack leadership was based on misinterpretation of poor data. It still works as a training tool because if is followed carefully it forces the owner to be consistent and that is the single most important factor in dog training. Dogs know that humans are not dogs, they do not communicate with us in the same way as they do with other dogs, they do not expect us to communicate or behave like another dog. So the concept of a human behaving like a dog in order to assert pack leadership, makes no sense.

I am the owner of a very large, very dominant, and originally very challenging dog (thanks to his previous owners). I can assure that attempting to train a dog like mine by dominating or challenging it, is a recipe for disaster. All it takes it for the dog to call your bluff once. Bottom line is that if a human picks a fight with a dog like that, they will lose. I was actually told by one trainer to alpha roll my dog, (admittedly he was still pretty skinny then, but he still weighed a good 13 stone). Can you imagine how that would have turned out?

Positive training can be used to train anything that punishment based training can. But there are many things that can be trained with positive training that cannot be trained by punishment (such as many of the behaviours required by service animals).

I only use positive training, and have never punished or dominated my dog in training. I still expect good manners, like waiting to be invited on to furniture, not barging through doors, etc, but it's nothing to do with pack leadership. Instead I actively avoid any form of challenge, so that I get my own way without any risk of confrontation.

I have used positive training to tackle dog aggression, resource guarding, collar and handshyness, grooming issues, I can't even remember half of it anymore TBH. As well as regular obedience sit/stay/down. It's as flexible a method as I could ask for.

The most useful command I have taught him is 'look at me' which I use for everything from controlling situation to self control exercises.

Spentit wrote: »

With regards to the KC Good Citizenship classes, I have never seen a dog distressed or hurt by being put in a long down. What other emergency measure could owners take that would not harm their dog?

I'm not sure what you mean by this, asking a dog to down is not the same as pinning it. It should never be necessary to physically force a dog into a down. If it's been trained properly it will down on command, and if it hasn't been fully trained yet, you shouldn't be using the command, as it's setting the dog up to fail.

Spentit_3

Thank you for your replies to my comments. I think you are all talking about dog training, probably my fault for bringing Gwen Taylor and KCGC into the discussion. I have also trained my dogs as I said before (KCGC) but dog training is a separate issue and not what CM is about.

To go back to the OPs question about Cesar Milan - on the show we see Cesar carrying out certain techniques on problem dogs and we are warned not to try these techniques at home. What we can take away from the show or his books is his philosophy of treating dogs as animals, not humans, giving them plenty of exercise and giving them discipline in a calm assertive manner. I can't see any problem with that at all. I have never seen him recommend that someone tries to pin down a 15 stone rotweiller, don't you think that would be silly?

Spentit_3

I'm not sure what you mean by this, asking a dog to down is not the same as pinning it. It should never be necessary to physically force a dog into a down. If it's been trained properly it will down on command, and if it hasn't been fully trained yet, you shouldn't be using the command, as it's setting the dog up to fail.[/quote]

You may be right but that's the way I was taught and it's a very effective method for getting a dog under control without causing it physical harm. Basically you put it in a down and stand on the lead so it's not getting up again. I'm quite happy to put my dog in this position to settle it down because it works, I don't think I would try it on your dog though.

orlao

Spentit wrote: »

Thank you for your replies to my comments. I think you are all talking about dog training, probably my fault for bringing Gwen Taylor and KCGC into the discussion. I have also trained my dogs as I said before (KCGC) but dog training is a separate issue and not what CM is about.

To go back to the OPs question about Cesar Milan - on the show we see Cesar carrying out certain techniques on problem dogs and we are warned not to try these techniques at home. What we can take away from the show or his books is his philosophy of treating dogs as animals, not humans, giving them plenty of exercise and giving them discipline in a calm assertive manner. I can't see any problem with that at all. I have never seen him recommend that someone tries to pin down a 15 stone rotweiller, don't you think that would be silly?

The point I was trying to make was that if the basic training is done properly that you should never need to use CMs methods......and if you can't train a dog to do those basic things you are really pushing your luck in trying a programme that requires both skill and timing....

Speaking for myself, my dogs are not human but they are my beloved pets albeit with very clear boundaries...I need to be able to take them anywhere including a city office,a working farm and busy horse shows to name just a few so their manners have to be good...and while my dogs are far from perfect (one JRT is an inveterate food thief, the rott thinks he is a little dog and regularly gets stuck in stupid places, he also has thug tendancies that include humping other dogs if he gets a chance and the other JRT is a wimp of the highest order and demands rescuing from the silliest of things:o ) they all were trained with postive reinforcement which is effective IME.

IMHO if you were to try dominance type methods with many willful, spoilt dogs they would fight back one way or another, then you are in an escalating situation where it's either you or the dog win...what happens if the person loses?

Spentit_3

orlao wrote: »

The point I was trying to make was that if the basic training is done properly that you should never need to use CMs methods......and if you can't train a dog to do those basic things you are really pushing your luck in trying a programme that requires both skill and timing....

Speaking for myself, my dogs are not human but they are my beloved pets albeit with very clear boundaries...I need to be able to take them anywhere including a city office,a working farm and busy horse shows to name just a few so their manners have to be good...and while my dogs are far from perfect (one JRT is an inveterate food thief, the rott thinks he is a little dog and regularly gets stuck in stupid places, he also has thug tendancies that include humping other dogs if he gets a chance and the other JRT is a wimp of the highest order and demands rescuing from the silliest of things:o ) they all were trained with postive reinforcement which is effective IME.

IMHO if you were to try dominance type methods with many willful, spoilt dogs they would fight back one way or another, then you are in an escalating situation where it's either you or the dog win...what happens if the person loses?

Yes I agree that if you make sure that basic training is done properly you shouldn't end up with a dog with problems, but even with basic training there may still be problems with the owner, nervousness about their dog being hurt being a common one where owners stand rigid with all their tension on the lead as another dog approaches. Of course the poor dog thinks it needs to be afraid and this sort of behaviour leads to all sorts of problems. Having a greater understanding of dog psychology can avoid this sort of thing. Walking out of the door first, eating first, keeping the toys etc, all of this would be viewed by the dog as acts of dominance. Whether you think of it as dominating your dog or just expecting good manners it doesn't matter because the result is the same; the dog understands who's in charge.

I'm not going to go on about this any more because I understand your point of view but I do think a disctiction needs to be made between the work CM does as a professional dog handler and the ideas he passes on to the public to try with their own pets. Exercise, discipline and affection in that order is what makes my dogs a joy to be with. ( although I can sympathise with you on the food theft thing, I think I may have found a solution with one of my dogs, I have a purple fruit shoot bottle that I've squirted him with a couple of times. It really puts him off but as soon as I leave the kitchen, he's up at the worktop mooching. I've started just leaving the bottle on the side pointing at him when I leave the room and I think it's doing the trick!) Sorry to go off topic - again.

pboae

Spentit wrote: »

You may be right but that's the way I was taught and it's a very effective method for getting a dog under control without causing it physical harm. Basically you put it in a down and stand on the lead so it's not getting up again. I'm quite happy to put my dog in this position to settle it down because it works, I don't think I would try it on your dog though.

I know it's still often taught that way, but it's lazy training. Encouraging people to keep the dog in a down by force (ie. it physically cannot get up because you are standing on the lead), is just sloppy practice. If the dog were properly trained it wouldn't be neccessary because the dog would stay there on command. It also means the dog can only be held in a down when it's within a couple of feet of the owner. What happens when they want it to down at a distance? (A solid emergency down is one of the most important commands to teach a dog that is allowed to run off lead).

Aside from the ethics of manhandling dogs, owners ought to be aiming to be able to get their dogs under control instantly and without needing to touch them. A good training class should teach that. Cutting corners by using restraint instead of commands leaves the owner reliant on the restraint, and vulnerable if they can't use it for some reason.

Spentit wrote: »

I don't think I would try it on your dog though.

That's an interesting comment, first I should say that you couldn't do it to my dog. By 'putting' him into a down, I *think* you mean physically pushing them down (I am not 100% sure on that though), probably by pressing on their haunches or above their hocks until they are forced to sit/down. If you did that to my dog it would cause him a great deal of pain and quite possibly cripple him, due to his spinal injuries.

Plus harsh training using a collar as restraint (with or without a lead) is what usually causes collar shyness in the first place. It would be madness to try and use it with a dog that was already collar shy.

However, I don't think that's what you meant (and again I am putting words into your mouth here, so please do correct me if I am wrong). I think you meant that you would not attempt to manhandle a dog big enough and bolshy enough that it might fight back. It's the same reason why most of the trainers I spoke to initially refused to work with him, they knew their supposedly one-size-fits-all approach wouldn't work and had nothing else to offer.

It saddens me that owners are left in that position by trainers, and it infuriates me that trainers do it. If their methods were valid (and safe) they would be suitable for dogs of any size and temprement, not just ones that are small enough and weak enough to bully.

Spentit wrote: »

... Walking out of the door first, eating first, keeping the toys etc, all of this would be viewed by the dog as acts of dominance. Whether you think of it as dominating your dog or just expecting good manners it doesn't matter because the result is the same; the dog understands who's in charge.

Why would it see it as dominance, when it's not normal canine behaviour? In wild dog packs, when adequate food is available, the alpha animals don't eat first, they all eat together. When food is scarce pups eat first. Once a dog has food, then it is allowed to try and defend it, regardless of status.

Nor would an alpha animal go through a 'doorway' first (in that something like walking through a gap in boundary, out into an open area is about the closest natural equivalent to a doorway), then the alphas would hang back and one of the lower dogs would scout ahead first.

My dog does as I ask because he knows it is more rewarding for him to do so, than not to. Partly because he wants to please me, after all it's their loyal devoted natures that make them such lovely pets, and partly because he has been trained to know that doing as he is asked = reward, and not doing it = nothing.

The secret is to set the situation up so that the dog wants to do the same thing as you want it to do, rather than finding ways to force it to do something it doesn't want to do.