He needs to learn to recognise which are really dominant dogs though
Unfortunately he seems to think `if its a dog it will be dominant, full stop`, he has no understanding of actual dominance in dogs and what it means, certainly not in relation to humans from a dogs perspective so nyah
:smt016 :smt016 :smt016

How Very dare you give me THREE :smt016

I agree I think he could be more lenient with certain dogs that are possibly fear aggressive, as apposed to dominant aggressive

but even so :smt016 :smt016 :smt016 :smt016 :smt016

I know this is not about cesar but i will just add this...# if you or i had a dog that was very scared and fearfull n nervous of things..what would you do?.. 9/10 u would probably try to comfort the scared dog, fuss him talk softly to him, love him, ect..i would its only human nature to do so..cesar s therory is that by doing that by fussing, stroking n comforting the scared nervous dog you are infact conditioning it, your rewarding/giving affection to it for being scared..intensifying its insecurities, cesar would work to make the dog more confident, overcomine its fear, then when the dog shows its calm and stable then give him affection!
Dogs are much happier when they are balanced with no issues.
In cesars book im reading he says he always felt a kin to dogs, he left mexico with 100 dollors which he gave to a guy to get him across the border..yes he entered usa illegally,he walked n walked trying until finally he was given a job in a dog groomers, from there he went to a training centre and through luck, chance and fate he ended up where he is today, you would not believe that all or most of cesars dogs in his pack were once un balanced, red zone aggresive problamtic dogs on verge of being pts, his pack is balanced stable happy.
He says its all about energy projecting the right energy..calm assertive,
But i do see wht you mean re him being to dominent or thinking every dog is to dominent ..my response to that is most dogs and owners that have issues n problams that cesar sees, all have a range of different problams, but majority of it all boils down to the nitty gritty..''the dog thinking he is above or boss over owners'' or other dogs. But i am confused slighty i always thought it was natural if you have more than 1 dog that they will themselves sort out which one n who is the boss and who are the followers.. i have 2 dogs and my yorkie is the boss, but cesar says no dog within your pack should be dominant / boss over other dogs and humans, he says the human is boss pack leader and 'all' the dogs are followers!
So which is it?.. should i be encouraging my domanant dog to stay continue being boss or should i work to make both my dogs followers and im the boss over them?.. also i assumed even if one of my two dogs is boss over my other dog i can still be boss if you will, over them both!?! yes ive confused my self now Arghhh!!!!!

Anyway lets get back to the op...i may just start a thread on our friend mr cesar millan!! lol

I have adopted fearful aggressive dogs [ severely abused ], and no I did`nt coddle them, it would have reinforced their fears and frankly two of them would have shredded me if I`d tried giving them cuddles they could`nt cope with at the start of their rehab


Thats not what he does though - he forces dogs in to confrontational situations which they can`t cope with but instead of letting them meet those situations in a way to desensitise them he uses force and pain so that the situation they fear is over-ridden by pain. It does`nt cure their fear as he claims, it just makes them too afraid to show that fear because it equals physical pain from the choker he uses in such a cruel way.
He either knows that he is just masking things but keeps quiet so as too fool people into thinking he`s worked a miracle, or he really does`nt have a clue about what he is actually causing.

Either way, when people see or read what he does then try it themselves they are asking for trouble and will likely lead to tragedy.

With a fearful aggressive OR dominant dog [ which are few and far between but many like him mistake one with the other ], there is no quick fix, the only thing which will work safely and long term is patience, patience, and more patience, in desensitising carefully over time and not putting dogs in difficult situations before they are ready to cope with them, its very much baby steps to get it right.

Absolutely - and that includes not having pain and force inflicted on them by people who don`t understand what they are really doing

Noooo, its about blinding people with `gloss`.

Here`s what is being said by respected people in the dog behaviour world.

From : Talk Softly and Carry a Carrot or a Big Stick?
By Jean Donaldson, Director of The SF/SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers

http://www.urbandawgs.com/divided_profession.html

QUOTES FROM EXPERTS including

“Cesar Millan's methods are based on flooding and punishment. The results, though immediate, will be only transitory. His methods are misguided, outmoded, in some cases dangerous, and often inhumane. You would not want to be a dog under his sphere of influence. The sad thing is that the public does not recognize the error of his ways. My college thinks it is a travesty. We’ve written to National Geographic Channel and told them they have put dog training back 20 years.”
Dr. Nicholas Dodman - Professor and Head, Section of Animal Behavior
Director of Behavior Clinic, Tufts University - Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

“Practices such as physically confronting aggressive dogs and using of choke collars for fearful dogs are outrageous by even the most diluted dog training standards. A profession that has been making steady gains in its professionalism, technical sophistication and humane standards has been greatly set back. I have long been deeply troubled by the popularity of Mr. Millan as so many will emulate him. To co-opt a word like ‘whispering’ for arcane, violent and technically unsound practice is unconscionable.”
Jean Donaldson, The San Francisco SPCA-Director of The Academy for Dog Trainers

"A number of qualified professionals have voiced concern for the welfare of pet dogs that experience the strong corrections administered by Mr. Millan. My concerns are based on his inappropriateness, inaccurate statements, and complete fabrications of explanations for dog behavior. His ideas, especially those about “dominance”, are completely disconnected from the sciences of ethology and animal learning, which are our best hope for understanding and training our dogs and meeting their behavioral needs. Many of the techniques he encourages the public to try are dangerous, and not good for dogs or our relationships with them ."
Dr. Suzanne Hetts, Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist
Co-owner of Animal Behavior Associates, Inc., Littleton, CO


"On his TV show, the main method Millan uses for aggression is aversives (leash jerks, kicks, snaps of the hand against the neck, and restraint, among others) applied non contingently. The aversives are non contingent because they are so frequent that they're not connected to any particular behavior on the part of the dog—the dog gets popped pretty much constantly. This results in a state called learned helplessness, which means the animal hunkers down and tries to do as little as possible. This is what Millan calls "calm submission." It's exactly the same thing you see in a rat in a Skinner box that is subjected to intermittent shocks it can do nothing to avoid. This can happen quite fast, by the way, shall we say in ten minutes? The dangers to the dog are obvious, ranging from chronic stress to exacerbating the aggression, i.e., some dogs fight back when attacked. This latter is the simplest reason that aversives are a bad idea in treating aggression. Even used technically correctly as positive punishment for specific behaviors like growling and snarling, aversives do nothing to change the underlying fear or hostility, so the best you can hope for, in the words of famed vet and behaviorist, Ian Dunbar, is "removing the ticker from the time bomb." Thus such methods substantially increase the risk to humans of getting bitten."
Janis Bradley, Instructor at The San Franciso SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers
Author of the book, "Dogs Bite"

Excerpt of letter from Lisa Laney, Dip. DTBC, CPDT, CBC to National Geographic before airing “The Dog Whisperer”:
“The intended program depicts aversive and abusive training methods - treatment for some serious anxiety and fear based issues - being administered by an individual with no formal education whatsoever in canine behavioral sciences. The "results" that are shown are more than likely not long lasting changes, but the result of learned helplessness, or fatigue, neither of which impact behavior to any significant long term degree - at least not in a good way. For those of us who are pioneering the effort to end the ignorance that drives the cruel treatment administered upon our canine companions, it is disappointing to see that this programming will reach the masses - especially on the NG Channel. The ignorance that this program perpetuates will give equally ignorant people the green light to subject their dogs to abuse. In turn these dogs will react even more defensively, will bite more people - and end up dead.”

"I have serious concerns because his methods are often intimidating rather than motivating. On TV, the dogs do comply but often they're being forced to - you can tell by their body language: tail down, mouth closed, ears back, eyes dilated... I argue that motivating leadership is far more effective than leading through intimidation."
Steve Dale
He's certified as a Behavior Consultant by the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, and the recipient of many awards including the prestigious AVMA Humane Award.


Noooo, thats just not true, not true at all. Thats what is so completely misunderstood about the old debunked dominance theory [ debunked by one of the original leading proponants of it who then realised he had been seeing it all wrong himself ].

Pack `leadership` in multidog households is often fluid, and even when its not, the dog which appears to be the `boss` through show of force or aggression is actually the one which is the least confident and not able to take a leadership role. The quieter more tolerant dogs are the ones which usually are the strongest as far as the rest of the pack are concerned, they can just give a `look` and its enough to make a more physically strong dog within a `pack` back off.

Which just proves how little he understands pack orientation

He`s talking out of his posterior. Dogs do not recognise humans as pack leaders, it does`nt work that way. Milan thinks pack leader = brawn or ability to inflict force through pain.
Thats not what makes a pack leader [ even if dogs did suddenly change to recognise a human as a pack leader which they wont, they know we are a different species ], all his methods are about is cowardice, he`s too gutless to throw away his force / pain inflicting tools and actually learn how to motivate and earn a dogs genuine freely given respect.

Throwing away his book would be a good start to ending your confusion imo
Dogs are dogs. Humans are humans. A human can never truly make themselves a dogs `boss`, they can think they can through force or intimidation, they can fool themselves about it, but their dog will never believe nor accept it where it matters - in the dogs soul

I have dogs who would have torn him apart if he`d tried his stuff on them, and even if he somehow managed to dodge their teeth and make them compliant, he would never in a million years have what I have with them - freely given trust and respect which goes both ways.


There have been a few already

I don`t think people are forgetting the other book and methods you mentioned, many have given their opinions on that one too and are not mixing up the two, its just that every time Milan is mentioned, human hackles let alone canine ones go up and bristle because many of us have seen right through his twaddle and cruelty - others who have`nt yet will hopefully get there in the end sooner or later [ sounds like you already have though ]

If CM got near Spence hed die hes fear aggresive after been chased as a pup.Hes also so attached to me, if any one threatened me or him hed attack

I personally like CM, although in his programms it does appear he uses the one shoe fits all approach, but on the other hand, in his last programme there was a yorkie that was atacking the daughter of the house (quite aggressively IMO) in a matter of minutes, he managed to show the daughter that it was HER behaviour and approach to the dog in the early days(ie thought the dog to delicate and so was not firm with it) that started the behaviour in the dog, once the daughter realised that the dog was a dog and not a baby, and approached the dog with a different ATTITUDE, the dog started to adjust ITS behaviour, all CM did was initially his trademark tshhh sound and block the biting dog, the daughter did the same with confidence (not hurting the dog in any way I might add) and continued to do this, the dog eventually(of its own choice) get onto the girls lap and was relaxed, the same dog would not walk on lead, he put from what I could see was a slip lead on the dog and took no nonsence from the dog, he didnt drag it he just walked, if the dog stopped, he distracted it and got it walking again, the dog was in no time walking quite happily with tail a wagging. that was not a dog that had been frightened into submission or doing the things out of fear, it was a dog that now knew its place and was happy about it. I also think the fact that he can have ALL of his dogs reacting they way they do in a large group, the fact that he can introduce strange dogs into that group without breaking out in a sweat, or giving aggressive commands, and allowing the calm dogs assist the new dog to settle is wonderful IMO non of his dogs act like they are behaving the way they do because they are affraid of acting any differently. he has in his group some very powerful, and possibly aggressive breeds that are mixing quite happily and I take my hat off to him for being able to have that calm balance going on within his group,

Although I am not a lover of certain training methods, and do prefer the positive reinforcement approach, sometimes I do wonder if we have gone too far in the gently gently approach, it seems to me that there are more "out of control" dogs than there used to be. we as a family always had dogs, and I can honestly say the dogs were always treated like dogs (not like a child) more often than not, when WE were in the mood for playing with our dogs we played, when WE wanted to take notice of our dogs we did, we fed them groomed them and looked after them, but they were not the center of our universe. and not one of the dogs had behaviour problems, and were pretty good at doing as we bid, sometimes I think too much thought is put into training, and not enough common sence is the problem. it seems the society we live in although has come on in leaps and bounds with regards to the caring of our dogs, but in other aspects over time we have lost something. sorry seem to be rambling, but that comes with being involved in dogs in some sort of way for near enough 52 years. lol.

Mo

Hi..yes i do agree with your comment in some ways..it made a very iuntersting read, also mo i to agree with your comment..in fact i am now quite confused abnout cesar and his methods, its hard when you have thought of someone as a hero [regarding his work with dogs], and then yoiu look into it all in more detail and you find yes he is not all you thought he wss.
I personally have very rarely seen him use a choke collar, i see him use the illusion cvollar his wife designed which is a nylon colloar, i have seen him do the kick with his foot..but imo its not a kick as such, its more a touch to take the dog out of its immediate state of mind, even so i would not feel comfortable doing that to my dog, also noty in public..i could get arrested and my dog removed !!! well im not sure about that but i do know iu would not want my dog afreaid of feet/kicking. His touch on the neck area does not as he says hurt the dog, and mo i also saw the one with the snappy yorkie..!!
Cesar often says..''he trains humans/owners and rehabilitates dogs'' and i do agree that majority it is the humans/owners who have un-knowingly caused or escalated the dogs issues/problams, the owner may have not done this on purpose, which dog lover would purposely create issues for their dog?..none!!
anyway im no way an expert on dogs, dog behaviour ect... hence i am open minded to the fact that cesar may not be the perfect dog whisperer i thought he was!

One reasons im reading his book apart from i did think he was brilliant... is my dogs!
My yorkie is a female she is 2yr next april, my staff is a female and 1yr next june.. yes we have a few issues but nothing major, but things id like to understand better and correct now before it goes into something more serious, i know this thread is not the place to post..re this so i will post a new thread in the behaviour/training section, i have already has some excellent advice from a fellow dogsey member..
anyway im also trying to find a thread on dog insurance, as i am wanting uinsurance for both my dogs as i trhink it is very iump[ortant..ok thanks xxx

I'm a big fan of Caesar Millan's Dog Whisperer TV programme, and I also have his book.

I've not seen him do anything I would consider cruel. I think his methods are simple common sense in most cases. I like his aproach. No dog is my equal and I promote my superiority in my 'pack'. He and I are on the same wavelength.

Dawn R.

I think he is ok and also the trainers on Dog Borstal.