Have posted this before but for those who dont want to trail through old threads I'll post it again. There are some interesting articles on the site.

http://www.4pawsu.com/dogpsychology.htm

I think that in it's most basic form he's got the right idea... Treat the dog like a dog not a child, meet the dogs physical and mental needs and give boundaries etc. I don't think you achieve that by pinning a dog down on the floor or jabbing it in the neck.
The most dangerous thing about it is because the programme makes it look so easy people find themselves very tempted to try it and because often these dogs have problems it doesn't really give a balanced view on how to treat a normal dog. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I have seen the alpha roll/pin them on the floor thing in practice and it isn't at all nice to see, and obviously very scary for the dog theres no point in trying to overpower a dog physically imo, they are often stronger than us and all of them can bite, and trying to overpower them physically only gives them opportunity to realize this and then you end up with a dog who doesnt respect or trust you AND knows that he can bite you and you can't do a damn thing about it!
I think Cesar has done some good things in regards to 'red zone' cases, and if his method works for a dog where otherwise the dog would be pts then so be it, but i wouldn't let him 'rehabilitate' my dog

bottom line is he is getting the job done and like i said before these dogs are the worst case scenario with little or no future. how many of us would take on an agressive 10 stone rottie (for example)?

and how is he going to physically pin down this large agressive rotty? if it was truly agressive and dom he wouldget his face ripped off
every single red zone agressive dog i have seen him deal with has been fear agressive
you do not fix fear with force all that happens is the scared dog stops giving you a warning that they are scared and that is more dangerous

seeing as i now have a fear agressive dog i know a little better about this
i am finding that the things that are working best
building a bond with the dog so they trust you that nothing bad will happen
rewarding calm behaviour
understanding what the dog is saying and if it cant cope with a situation moving away
teaching alternative behaviours like sitting by you instead of trying to attack

i know all breeds of dogs are different but they are all selectivly bred from the wolves who craved the atention of humans, every dog given the right motivation wants to work with us and get our approval
scarter, you wouldnt be able to do agility with your dog if it didnt want to listen to you and all breeds that are physicaly able to are being trained for agility, even the most difficult to train ancient breeds

Nope, not impressed at all. He is bullying and wrongly uses the title behaviourist in my opinion. He isn't a behaviourist, he is a bully.

He uses physical punishment (even if people think it is mild), jabbing dogs with your hand can lead to a hand shy dog.......a very bad thing to have. Dogs should think that only great things come from hands.

He also over uses flooding techniques, e.g constantly exposing dogs to the things that they are scared of in an attempt to get them over their fear.

Most of what he does appears to have a quick fix treatment, which i would always be weary of, but it also relies on the persons physical strength, and the strength of their personality. What happens with these dogs when a child asks them to do something? Do they do it happily because they have learnt in nice ways? Or do they size up their competetion and then make a decision....the later i would have thought!

There are lots of link on the web of people who have given their dogs to him and are suing him for damage to their dogs, e.g over exercising them on treadmills, actuall damamge to neck and limbs etc etc.

I do think he is right that you have to exercise dogs, and that you should be calm and assertive with dogs.....but i don't think jabbign at a dog is calm assertive!

He has this pack of dogs which seems to be his claim to fame, but, in general, dogs don't live in packs in concrete compounds (not something i would want for my dog) how many of those dogs are so well rounded that they could happily and safely be introduced to a home environment and all the challenges that brings? Very few i would have thought!

If his methods are so good why does that message constantly flash up WARNING DO NOT TRY THESE METHODS AT HOME!? Because they are cruel methods and likely to have detrimental if not dangerous effects! A message like that isn't needed on Victoria Stillwell or Ian Dunbars programs. Unfortunately people do use his method at home, because they watch the program and think it all looks great (clever editing). Real behaviourists are now dealing with the outcomes of people using these methods at home, the last i heard about was someone who bought an air horn to use with the 14 week old lab puppy!!! Can you imagine the damage that did!


I think it is terrible that the programe is shown, when there are trainers who are so much better and so much more qualified with much better understanding of dogs and how to change behaviours in the UK.

Oh - last thing! When he pins them to the floor and they are supposedly submitting......they are not! The majority of the time they are shutting down.....over loaded with fear and confusion.

A dog/human/chicken/fish cannot learn when they are shut down through fear!!

A lot of real behaviourists do so regularly and with much better longer lasting results using kind methods!!

They just aren't on TV earning fast sums of money for it! Behaviourists are doing it all the time regularly! Just because they aren't on a tv program with a flashy smile doesn't mean that they aren't doing and are not doing a far better job!

Firstly he is on tv because he became "famous" by word of mouth for the fantastic results he was achieving with dogs no one else was willing to take on. He has saved so many dogs from euthanasia and will attempt to rehabilitate any dog whatever the problem. For that alone the guy is a God in my eyes.
He does not ever advocate harming or treating a dog roughly, you only have to read his books to know he only ever has the dog as his priority.
The dogs you see in his compound are 50% dogs who he has taken on to rehabilitate and attempt to rehome, and if that fails he will keep them on forever. The rest are made up of clients dogs some there for residential training, some while the owners are on holiday etc. The permanant residents are rotated spending time living in his home with him and his family.
He always says that all dogs come after all family members and should learn to respect even the youngest child. His books are full of good advice about how to introduce dogs and babies, what ground rules to have in place etc. etc. There is no crap information in his books at all that I could see.
I like him, can you tell?

You are missing the point. Dogs have been selectively bred to produce certain traits that make them suitable for particular jobs. Some dogs have been bred for their ability to follow instructions and work closely with a human. Others have been bred to ignore humans when at work and do their own thing.

Common sense should tell you that a training approach that works for an independant thinker typically won't work so well with a dog that is bred to work only to commands.

I remember you saying that your dog was afraid of certain pieces of equipment. You have to work on getting him/her over that fear. That would never be an issue with my dog as she wouldn't be much of a hunter if she hesitated at certain obsticals whilst on a trail. However, I have a big problem keeping her nose off the ground as there is NOTHING more interesting to a Beagle than following a scent. Once she's on that scent her ears switch off and she looses all interest in even the tastiest treats or most exciting games. Teaching her to sit, wait, down, stay, come, right, left etc is a piece of cake. She's absolutely brilliant at agility when she chooses to do it. She's a smart dog. She can do all that just as well as any other breed of dog, and all the 'bog standard' training methods work.....until her nose goes down. So the most important thing when training her is to learn how to get and keep her attention when her instincts kick in.

Now lots of training approaches doggedly persevere with trying to override her instincts. It doesn't work very well in my opinion - perhaps with some dogs, but not mine. Ceasar Milan often advises that it's important to understand and work with your dog's instincts. This not only helps you to understand and control them, but also it works wonders for the dog's self-esteem. Most dogs want to work - work at the thing that they've evolved or been selectively bred to do. It must be crap for a little scent hound to be ignored or dissaproved of when it puts it's nose down and concentrates on it's work. If a scent hound has any interest in pleasing a human it wants that human to be pleased when it follows a scent independantly of human interaction. So the biggest part of training my dog involves scent work. So tracking, nose games etc. My dog's natural work. Also a great deal of work on tapping into her instincts and developing a response where she feels compelled to come to me when she finds an interesting scent, or when a bird or squirrel shoots past.

Learning commands, learning to jump over things etc is a very trivial part of her training. A part that she only learns on a superficial level if I don't spend 95% of my time on breed specific (and Beanie specific) training.

So when my dog learns a few tricks, or learns to jump over things when I tell her it's not because of the time spent training her to do these 'tricks', but because of the time spent learning about what makes her tick and tapping into it. THIS is where I think Ceasar Milan is a very useful source of info and ideas. I would go so far as to say that ideas that we've got from his TV program have given us more control over our dog than any other source.

We can let her play off lead every day and *apparantly* have as good control over her as pretty much any other dog owner. But whereas some dog owners are controlling their dogs through commands and obedience we are controlling ours by knowing what makes her tick and staying one step ahead. If we get it wrong she wouldn't respond to our commands. A day may come when she will, but I believe that will only happen through understanding what makes her tick. She'll never be obedient out of desire to please me.

The collars he uses (prong, chain, half-check etc) are what are provided by the owner of the dog. His collar of choice is a slip lead.

I don't like seeing a prong collar on a dog personally and wouldn't choose to use one myself, but CM only uses them if the owner of the dog was using it in the first place.

Good post Scarter BTW. I agree that no one training method will suit all dogs. I train my little terrier cross differently to how I train my staffy. But I treat them both the same generally - they know their place in my pack (and so does my OH ).