Both dogs and humans frequently have a huuge fear of snakes, I personally love 'em, but I think the trouble with a dog like Daddy, a pit bull, he would wade in and bite first, and ask questions later, which would inevitably have resulted in his death at some stage or other. CM needed to teach him to be afraid of the snake to such an extent that he would give them a wide berth in future.

The e collar worked - which in my opinion just goes to show how very painful and scarey they must be to a dog! I personally believe that in this case the end justified the means, but I have to say there are very few occasions I can think of where such a thing should be used. But as controversial as doubtless this is, I think with a dog like Daddy CM was entirely justified.

Do you not find you have to pick up the pieces when it all goes horribly wrong Hannah?
A little knowledge can be very dangerous IMO.
Messages on the show flash up saying " do not use this technique at home" but Do people take notice of it? Not in my experience.
Just because it is shown on the TV by a so called expert does not make intimidating dogs into a state of learned helplessness any more acceptable to me.

Sadly yes - I have had to pick up the peices several times.
Often people have been on forums or spoken to friends who have watched or tried these methods without help and so feel that they can as well....

My point to you Nikki, is WHY did CM use his elderly Pit Bull? he was terrified and rightly so and used just to make a point, why didnt he "train" her dogs, the very ones he was supposed to be helping?

That's the trouble , some see the calm / assertive way of training is ALL CM , and no one else has thought of it.

But as with many GOOD trainers their calming energy will continue on through all the training methods both for the human and the dog.

Where in CM wil preach till the cows come home, that calm .assertive energy..is all it takes, them he blots his copy book by resorting to violence , i.e stringing/pinning/

Remeber most trainers will train the human to train the dog, a good trainer will educate the human in the way to deal with any given problem.

Now take CM... he rehabilitates a aggressive dog, by flooding it... either by use of pinning. stringing, or his illusion collar...

He fixes the dog , then hands it back to the owner, who has seem how he does it... can you imagine the carnage when said owners try this at home.... after all Cesar did it.

The reason he did it was because , it was good TV, he subjected his dog to the e.collar for no other reason than to make the programme..

Now correct me if I am wrong Daddy and all his other dogs live in a compound in LA...do you get Rattle snakes in inner cities

What chance in a million , will his dogs have of coming into contact with killer snakes.

Now why not use the dog of the client to teach it to stay away from snakes... after all they where the ones living in the great outdoors

Because this "elderly pitbull" is very fit and healthy, and showing far too much interest in lethal snakes ! As we now know, Daddy et al are taken out into S California where snakes are prevalent and therefore the likelihood of death was extremely high.

Ive said it before & i will Say it again, the more out of his depth CM gets , the more & more he spouts the "calm energy" yet he CANT do it, hes not calm, it almost like hes trying to convince the owners & himself. His body language is so tense & "tight", its quite funny really. So a case ofthe "emporers new clothes" , say it enough & people will buy it!!!!

Lately ive noticed that if he cant sort the dogs off at home he carts them off to his concrete yard!!!!! God it must be hot on that concrete & they all need a good brush

Promethean : we need your American input on the subject of the dangers of death or serious injury by venomous snake in the States.

You may have seen or heard of the episode of the Dog Whisperer where Cesar needs to stop Daddy attacking rattlesnakes in Southern California. He uses an e-collar. If the dangers of death or serious injury by snake is as serious as it would appear from the little bit of research that I have done, then my stance is that as much as I hate e-collars, the use of one on poor old Daddy may have been justified.

What is your opinion of this, and are venomous snakes a problem for dogs in the States?

Like you I currently have 4 dogs who could very well decide to kill me and have a really good chance at doing so. These 3 intact males are not cream puffs and by Cesar's metric they do everything "dominant" dogs do and he would likely say that they are trying or have "taken over" As I've stated previously the are trained in protection sports with one of them doing real civil defense. Despite all of this, I've never employed any of Millan's punitive methods to train them, nor do I or my neighbours, other dogs experience any problems with them.

In Bark Magazine Dr. Nicholas Dodman tells this story about a research carried out by a grad student at tufts. Two groups of puppies one group was told:

Big surprise, the first group ended up with aggressive, possessive problem dogs. The second group taught the dog to sit for stuff had no problems. It's like Jean McConnell likes to say, bad behavior is the product of owners rewarding bad behavior.

That's why there are paddling pools everywhere for the dogs to cool off in Mish

I so disagree about CM's body language

You would have expected nothing less, would you, from me !!