I found the title "Culture Clash" inspired.

Im always suspicious of any book entitled 'listener' or 'whisperer'.
Theories of Jan Fennell are the same as Cesar Milan - dominance, heirachy, and alpha.
The difference is where JF uses treats, Cesar Milan is more hands on.

Thankyou for that link labman, interesting reading as are peoples comments upon it. It will take me time to read them all but I will.
I wonder if some people feel that Cesar Milans methods do not work or if they do harm. I have watched the programme and read his lastest book which was interesting but then you do not see these animals been pinned down when reading the book.
I think it is human nature a lot of the time to take things and take them apart, then we look at them from every angle form opinions and debate and I suppose if your building an object well that is ok, but when dealing with living things that are so different like dogs ( different breeds) and our selves we get in a muddle trying to stick to one set of rules that may work for one dog but not the other then there is the roll of the dog in question be it a police dog or a pet at home.
The media always cater for the colourful and Cesar has that going for him with his " all you have to do is understand to have the perfect dog" message, some would say thats just common sense.

But whereas I have no time for CM, Jan Fennel makes sense and her methods are very different

not a cm or jf fan
ian dunbar has some good puppy stuff too, and you can pick up some of his old vids from ebay for next to nothing

imho cm is a tv celebrity and offers little useful in training a dog

google positive training or clicker training and you will find lots of helpful stuff

in a nutshell how i see bringing up a dog

theres no dom problems
you decide what behaviours you want, eating manners, on off sofa etc, if the dog does something you like you reward it if it does something you dont you train an alternative

enjoy your pup, play with, train and build a great bond of understanding and trust
be fair and consistant

and take many fotos

Yes, like learning home maintaince from Home Improvement

i acknowledged earlier JF and CM's methods are different.
but the dominance/alpha philosophy is the same.
Bearing in mind JF gets her facts wrong about wolves, let alone dogs, i dont see where she makes any sense myself.

That is a brilliant analogy!! Mind if I use that in future??

I liked this - so very true!

Go for it. Isn't everything on the net up for grabs?

Hi,

As already stated YOU make the rules not your dog. The problem tends to arise when our dogs do somethign we DON'T wnat them to do and we don't teach them to do something differnet instead. So they learn that the unwanted behaviour is OK and we get all narky about our dogs misbehaving!

At only 13 weeks old he's at an ideal stage for learning. He'll pick things up like adry sponge picks up water. SBTs are very intelligent and are easy to train (IMO).

Remember though that puppies do play with their mouths so you will get nipped and chewed occasionally partly through play befcause that's what dogs do and partly due to teething as he grows. Make sure that you teach him about bite inhibition and always do everythign in a positive way.

If he's doing something you don't like tell him "no", "leave", "down" or whatever it is you want him to do. Once he's done the "GOOD" thing then reward him.

ALso, see about getting him into a local training class. At 13 weeks he should have had his 2nd lot of vaccinatons and be OK to go out and about now. He'll learn all about dog socialisation, as will you and you can pick up ideas and tips from the other dog owners as well as the trainers.

Try to look at everyone's training methods objectively. I personally used to watch CM but don't anymore since doing as suggeste and watching with the sound off. Some of what he says makes sense at firest - such as our dogs pick up on how we feel. I believe this to be true because of some of the behaviours of my dogs recently and my home situation.
On the other hand, I don't beleive that eating first, or walking through a door first makes me any less of the boss in my house.

So long as your dog knows you are the boss ir you control the resources - food, walkies time, playtime (you also decide when it stops too), you can't go far wrong.

Don't worry too much about things right now just enjoy your pup and let him be a dog. Make sure he doesn't get into bad habits or form bad manners and you'll have a lovely, friendly, well mannered, well socialised SBT that will be a credit to you.

Good luck.

Laura xx

They may work in different way to achieve results, but they both sing from the same hymn sheet.

Dominance!!!!!!!