I agree and I see dogs as having the mind somewhere between that of an animal and a human. Sibevibe brought it to my attention that what CM says may be true among dogs when they are not with a human, as she observed in her dogs, but as soon as a human appears the behaviour changes. I think there is a difference between a dog as a pet and a dog that is semi feral living in a pack. I think the longer a dog lives with humans the more it becomes a self aware sentient being as Bierley says. That is where CM falls down.

We got our second dog at 5 months and before that he had had very little human contact and it took him a few months to get used to the very different behaviour of humans. What we teach dogs is compassion and affection for affections sake. The dog I mentioned at first could not understand why he was being petted for half an hour and was not comfortable with it. Of course now he loves it but because CM gets all his philosophy from observing dogs he thinks that affection is food and water etc as the most affection a dog will get from their pack leader is a single lick.

Our elder dog sometimes gets irritated by the small dog when he is biting a plastic bottle - don't we all? And will sometimes growl and air snap at him. We tell him no and you can see the change in his eyes from animal to self aware dog. He also did the same when the second dog was injured and we literally taught him compassion. CM says that dogs do not like weakness and he is right but what he maybe does not realize is that we can teach our dogs compassion - a human quality.

Have you seen the doberman that arranges his toys in patterns. He MUST be self aware!

@Minihaha I would agree but cm usually is with people who have gone too far the other way, who have humanized their dog too much. He is the antidote to how and why they have a problem. They are never going to be like him but they will be more like him and that will be good for them.

No rational person would follow him 100% but on OCASSION his philosophy, not necessarily methods are needed. My elder dog may be developing self awareness but he will still take a mile given an inch

totally agree

This is one of the best sites I know to counter the Millan PR machine.
http://beyondcesarmillan.weebly.com/

It brings together respected organisations, behaviourists, trainers, vets and others.
Please have a look at it.

will do, im open to reading anything

Funny, OH & i were discussing this this morning exactly how much dogs understand of what ww say so i started experimenting with Jo. We were playing (she likes to run with her sis when she fetches her ball ) & she kept breaking stay. So i told her in a level voice (not a tone used when she is being bad) that if she didn't stop she wouldn't be allowed ro play anymore with us... & She stopped. I always wonder just how much dogs understand.

I used to believe that tone of voice was everything and the words said meant nothing to the dog. Over time I've come to realise that dogs can understand words and scientific research has born this out.
It’s back of the mind stuff but I seem to remember one dog had been taught to recognise 300 words...roughly equal to the vocabulary of a young human child.
On the wider point of the thread, my main gripe with Caesar is that he misrepresents his approach. He claims he’s not a dog trainer and maintains, “I rehabilitate dogs and train people”. He clearly is a dog trainer and very much an old school dog trainer whose main methods centre on outdated views of dominance theory. His approach is summed up for me by the warning given in his TV shows not to try his methods yourself.
That said, I do feel those trainers who advocate only ever using rewards and never any form of punishment take the pendulum too far in the other direction. There are very limited circumstances where some of the old school training approaches CM uses do have a role.

Basically he is mostly there for aggressive dogs who he puts in to his boot camp which is the dog equivalent of the foreign legion. If you watch how new soldiers are trained it is much the same. I have a Spitz type dog with a curly up tail which I had only seen up and very occasionally down. Cesar says the ideal position is horizontal and I thought that was impossible for a spitz type.. Until I took him to a pack of balanced dogs and lo and behold it looked like someone had taken an iron to it! So his pack really help dogs.

He does not punish though, it is in the moment discipline but that is very much the old fashioned way which ironically seems new to the people on the show!

If he deals with"Aggressive dogs"why did he take a Chinese Crested from a rescue that had problems walking ? the little dog was not aggressive, not a "Red Zone"dog. He did not have the dog health screened before taking the dog & for a month tried to force the dog to walk, including putting it in a large washing up bowl with water in it to try to get the dog to swim. After a month of his"rehabilitation"methods the dog was no better so eventually was taken to a vet, who discovered that the dogs was blind, deaf, in end stage kidney failure & had a neurological disorder that prevented it from being able to walk properly. The dog was returned to the rescue & was PTS.......'nuff said, the man is an uneducated bully who wrongly believes that one method of dog training fits all dogs.

First of all there are HUNDREDS of people all over the world that deal with aggressive dogs even specialise in them and manage to rehabilitate these dogs very successfully without using bullying tactics, but actually earn trust.

Secondly the way soldiers are trained has nothing to do with dog training, if you studied the psychology of teaching people how to kill you would know that.

Spitz type dogs have curled up tails it is in their breed standard, it does not reflect their emotional state.

The same was as some other breeds have differing tail sets.

But anyone who is a Cesar acolyte will not hear or see anything else than his blinding tombstones.