miswhflynn: I was paying you a huge compliment, it obviously fell on stony ground, I won't bother again.

why do we keep talking about wolves?

Did Hal have some of this wolf blood in him or something?

Its not stoney ground i wouldnt want my dogs to be like Wolves, actually found it insulting!!!

I'm not getting involved in the argument regarding Cesar, I like him and feel no need to justify why, and can't be a*sed with the arguments,
I did find the above statement quite interesting though, not convinced mind you , Syd my male Dobermann used to do this and if you think 60 pounds of husky is scary try 46kgs of Dobermann Actually I never found it remotely intimidating or felt he was trying to scare the sh*t out of me, he was a young dog testing his skills and that was always how I viewed it, I learnt to never step aside and mostly used to ignore him as it generally happened when he was teara*sing about with a friends husky and we were chatting. The husky was prone to doing it too. It's that thing about 2 people with dogs in a field chatting, the dogs have the whole field to play in and yet they play in circles around their owners, bumping their legs from time to time, intimidation or exhuberance?

Patch:

To answer your previous post, we will have to agree to disagree about rescue centres. I can quite understand how they would want to stipulate certain things in their contracts, but I am a principled person and will not sign something that I do not agree with! What sort of person would that make me, so therefore if and when I do rescue a dog ... and I have one in mind ... he will come to me with his nuts, and unless for a medical reason, he will keep them.

I have had male dogs all my life, with the exception of 2 bitches (who were both spayed, one when I got her, one after I had bred from her ... having her spayed, made absolutely no difference to her character or behavioiur whatsoever incidentally). The males have always been entire, remained entire, and died entire, with the exception of a staffie whom my parents had rescued - entire, I might say, from a reputable rescue centre for staffies, a few years ago. My parents had him neutered, mistakingly in my opinion, and his character changed immediately. He became much less assertive with humans, which was good, but not with dogs, with whom he was very aggressive and remained so. He started to put on weight, despite living in several acres of grounds, so had to have his food cut down to keep him trim, and did nothing to alter my opinion on castration. I don't like chopping bits of any dog unnecessarily, I hate docking, and my dog had all his bits plus his dewclaws.

A few months before Hal died, we had to temporarily have him chemically castrated to see if lowering his testosterone levels reduced the size of his prostate, which was quite enlarged, which it did. But the dog was no longer Hal, he was quite frankly, a blob who had lost his spark, his zip, his Hal-ness. The effects wore off of course, as was the intention, and he returned to normal. I am not basing my dislike of castration on just 2 dogs, but these are the experiences that I have closely experienced. I have known many many more dogs over the years who have been castrated, and they all got fat, and IMO became blobs.

No, we mustn't get into the arguements about the rights and wrongs of breeding from crossbreeds. I will just say one thing .... it is arrogance itself to say that you can only breed from pedigrees ... pedigrees with their 2,000 + genetic diseases caused by inbreeding from a closed gene pool to create a certain "look" ... I'll PM you Patch on this one, before I go off on another tangent !

Apols to everyone for going off thread ... Patch, I'll PM you! (Fascinating discussion BTW)

mishflynn: I am confused here.

Dogs ARE the direct descendants of wolves. By saying that your collies are nothing like wolves and that you are insulted by me suggesting they are, baffles me beyond the bounds of baffling ! Dogs are domesticated wolves, pure and simple.

The Smythsonian Institute at the latter end of the 20th century reclassified them as being the same species as the wolf. Through their mitochondrial dna, ALL modern domestic dogs can be traced back to three original gray wolf bitches.

You are denying your beautiful dogs their roots mishflynn !

Trouble: hi there, yeah, scarey indeed ! And yes you are right, huskies are particularly prone to clipping ... must be the wolf in 'em !!

Hal clipped me good and proper twice in his life, the little git. The first time he just took my legs out from under me, he hit me from behind and I smacked down onto my right knee, which I have a problem with, and it locked up so I couldn't move ! My language was blue as to what I was going to do to the little ****** when I eventually caught him ! After about 15 minutes, I managed to unlock the knee, by which time, luckily for Hal, I had calmed down!

The second time was a few months later, but this time he was on his long extending lead and I remember flying through the air, horizontal to the ground, a bit like Superman ! I managed to keep hold of the lead though, and this time I didn't calm down, and I am afraid he had a whack across his bottom ... very un-Cesar like I know, but then we didn't have him around in those days ! That was the last time Hal did that ... actually hit me ... but it was so intimidating having even 65 pounds (in his latter days) only flying at you !! I dread to think what it must be like with a Dobe. Well done you for standing your ground, because it was hard with Hal. :smt002

mishflynn: sorry, i forgot to add this bit.

The reason we are talking about wolves is because it is topical to the thread. Cesar Millan, with his calm assertive energy, and his mimicing of the alpha in pinning, and talking about pack leaders etc. etc., is rightly envoking the rules of the wolf pack by teaching his human clients that they are the equivalent of the alpha male and alpha female, and must behave as such to maintain pack order.

It works for the wolf ... and has done for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years.

A fellow sufferer
Syd got me twice before I learnt not to step aside, the first I cracked my head on really hard ground, so the pain in the knee didn't seem that bad. The second time was a killer though he hit me at full speed because I stepped aside just as he swerved, he caught me on the side of my knee, and no knee is built to bend that way, Mega Ouch I was left with extensive ligament damage and pain for a year. I can't say I ever reprimanded him for it though because both times I stepped into his swerve, it was my fault and once I learnt to trust him to miss me and my damaged knee it wasn't an issue.
Once we got Rio he stopped doing it.

I have to say after seeing one of his programmes I have been unable to watch him again. I skip straight past his programme if I see him on as I feel so saddned by him.
My Shady has lots of problems and I dare say his methods could bring me a quick fix but there would I know be long lasting scarring from it and she would end up worse than she is now in the long term.
Every dog needs different handling and is an individual, I don't dispute that.
I would rather see an improvement in my dogs because they are not scared to behave any other way, than see one being obedient through fear. I think my dogs would be destroyed emotionally if he ever managed to get his hands on them, which he definatly won't.
Victoria Stilwell and Jan Fennel do at least have little bits in thier training methods I would utelise or consider and I can watch thier programmes, but him I just think is in it for the fame and money that comes with that. He really has no feelings for the dog concerned.