I would ask her why she has stopped showing clicker training.

I thought the same thing, because she is always banging on to owners of unruly dogs, just how many poor dogs end up in rescues, so I would hardly think she advocates having them pts, hence the reason she wants to SAVE them from such a fate by helping the owners?

Yeah I've never heard her suggesting putting a dog down.. I'm sure if she did that, she'd have really good reasons.

I really like her, and I agree with most of what she says. She does train with some aversive methods (ah-ah for example) but they are always used in conjunction with an alternative behaviour that is trained instead.

She has dealt with some really difficult dogs and always kept her cool while also being aware of the power and strenth of a dog (hence why she so rarely gets bitten..unlike CM).
Of course, she's a TV personality, but she promotes positive reinforcement and training methods that actually HELP people and that you can use at home safely. There's never a disclaimer on her show that says 'do not try this at home (because you might get severely bitten)' .. unlike on CMs show.

And I couldn't care less what she wears!

I heard that on YT about her putting lots of dogs down. My mistake there.

I will say this though. I think the reason she isn't bitten as much as Millan is because the cases she takes on are far less dangerous. Of course and her not putting herself in harms way. She waits until he's done peeing himself and skulking off before she takes the bowl.

Notice how in the video she doesn't get down and attempt to take the dogs food, unlike Millan... who has an unprecedented lack of fear for dogs.

MOST people would not dare to get down in a dog's face like that... for ANY reason. It's actually borderline insane to step in a dogs face like he did with Holly. I will say he tends to muzzle the pit bulls with aggression issues...

Search Stilwell aggressive dog on YT and you see a dog with moderate food guarding and a mounting bulldog.

Search Millan aggressive dog and you see Rottweilers lunging at tiny dogs, muzzled dogs on death row, etc... and aggression FAR worse than anything I have seen Stilwell with.

Also, not trying to be mean here... but I don't see follow ups to her episodes. Like yes the exercises look okay while she's doing them... but what's to say they worked?

Millan does lots of follow ups to his videos. Many of the dogs he can't train (of course because his training hardly works) but he takes these dogs to his "pack". I cannot find any Stilwell follow up videos...

The video AZZ posted, yes what she did looked nice and calm... but what's to say it stopped the food aggression? Is that method foolproof? I'm absolutely sure it is not. Can someone find the follow-up to that video? I looked but could not find it.

She gets my vote over him any day... only because she's actually nice to the dogs and doesn't punch and kick them or use shock collars... but in reality I vote for neither of them.

She made a post on a forum on the 9th December 2013 in which she stated the following:
QUOTE "I have had the chance to work with and/or visit rescue shelters and rescue organizations all over the world and applaud all of those people who work so hard to rehome abandoned animals. Recently though I have heard more and more stories and seen videos of some organizations hiring so called trainers to "rehabilitate" their difficult dogs. The training techniques are punitive and intimidating (everything from shock collars to horse whips) and I end up wondering how the poor dogs are going to survive in the outside world.
The shelter organizations defend their trainers vehemently, not because the people are mean, but because they literally do not understand what they are watching. Intimidating techniques suppress behavior for that moment or even for a period of time but they do not change the way the dog feels in a positive way. It might look like the dog is obeying but really the dog's true behavior is being suppressed and as a result the dog becomes more insecure. Then the dog is adopted out because it has been "rehabilitated" and the adoptive family is unaware of the potential hazards that await them in the future with an insecure dog.
Any fool can make a dog behave with punishment and force, but the true trainer is one that can change negative behavior, yes even aggression in high drive dogs, without the use of force, as well as encourage positive behavior.
If you are involved with a rescue organization, please do your research before hiring someone that could badly damage a dog's changes to be successful LONG TERM in a new home. Don't put adoptive families at risk by rehoming reactive and/or aggressive dogs that have been forcibly trained by a shelter trainer, whose behavior has been shut down for that moment, only to react even worse down the road.
This is more than just a moral and ethical issue, it is now an issue of public health and safety. Forceful training techniques make dogs insecure. Insecurity breeds anxiety and anxiety and fear is at the root of aggressive behavior." unquote

Maybe this is her take on *having dogs pts* that you refer to, in special circumstances, but yet again I actually have to agree with her. Some dogs can be just too damaged to be able to live happily in the real world, let alone the risk it might put to kids/families etc.

She said in the post, "please share this post" so I don't think she'll mind the copy and pasting I've done here. Hope it's ok with the mods too? Sorry if it's not, but it's relevant for Mjfromga and her remarks.

The reason why she's not bitten as much (or ever) is because she can actually read canine body language. Hence if a dog is not comfortable, she won't make it more uncomfortable and be provotactive like CM. She does THE RIGHT THING and shows people who to do the RIGHT THING! Meaning, if a dog shows aggression, back off and figure out what you've done. CM's message: intimidate the dog into 'submission' and bully it until it gives in. Great advice.



Lack of fear or full of himself? Having a complete lack of fear of dogs doesn't mean he understands anything about them. In fact, it makes him stupid. I get the impression he enjoys being in a stand-off and getting bitten by them. He probably feels like they're hero battle scars..

...probably because he knows he's otherwise going to get bitten..

I think there's one main reason for this: the dogs that CM deals with have been 'prepared' for the show. Plus the way he acts around them brings out the worst in them. If VS had been to visit Holly the lab, the whole episode might have looked like 'moderate food guarding'. The ONLY reason why Holly acts in the way she did in the video is because CM punches her, steps into her space and does pretty much everything wrong.
Also, you might not have seen all of VS's videos. I've seen her with pretty big and scary dogs. And dogs with pretty bad aggression issues. However, the way she deals with them is a million times less 'specacular' that CM. But effective.

I've seen quite a few follow up videos. None of them required her taking the dog away from its owners..

Food aggression/guarding is in most cases quite easy to 'cure'. By making the dog feel safe and making them understand that you're giving them food, and not taking it away. For some reason, Holly didn't trust anyone around food. She was scared. Same with the dog in VS's video. What CM did is to make Holly more scared but too scared to lash out (if you watch the whole video, at the end he takes out the fake hand and Holly immediately hides behind her owners...says it all). VS shows the dog that having humans around food is nothing to be worried about and that nobody takes her food away. The levels of food aggression in both the videos is actually quite similar, but Holly's escalates as she is provoked rather than reassured.

Victoria Stilwell isn't just 'nice' to dogs, she understands them and shows owners how to successfully turn unwanted behaviour around. She's never said to anyone 'you're dog is too bad, I'll have to take him' like CM does a lot. Because his methods mostly only work with him because he manages to intimidate dogs enough to get them to look well behaved around him.

With the exception of your final sentence Florence, I agree entirely ... an excellent post, well said

Ok maybe I should have said 'for the general public his methods don't work'. Perhaps if you can extract certain things from it.. but most people unfortunately follow him blindly.. and hurt their dogs in the way

I'd say well done for listening and learning as you go along and for being open minded enough to apply what you hear and learn in a positive way and to the betterment of your skills

CM is a failure for a trainer... I'm not saying he's right by any stretch. I don't think that Stilwell is a "real" dog trainer, either.

Her videos are LOADED with jump cuts and you rarely are able to see her interacting with the actual dog to solve aggression problems. This is a prime example of what I mean...



YES this dog seems aggressive, but you don't see her interacting with the dog during the stages, it automatically shows her sitting in their living room with the dog calmed down a lot. How did this happen?? Etc.

Puts me off a lot. Just seems like a dog under some type of command or something and then released for her actual sit down visit. You also see the dog unmuzzled lunging at a person, but clearly that person isn't her. Again, not her truly interacting with the dog.

Perhaps I have just watched the wrong videos?