I know of his background which is why im suprised of his handling.Your answer gave me no new info. Your dismissive view of my observations only back up what you think of me

Oh a dig at me again.WHAT a suprise.
Teaching a dog to lie down, will build up TRUST & relationship between dog & handler, you are teaching a dog to go into a submissive & vunrable position, you will achieve EXACTLY the same result by TEACHING as you would FORCEING, But dog & handler will get MUCH more out of it.

Firstly I would like to say I have been un-decided about CM and his methods and because of this I have got his book and am in the process of reading it at the moment.
I have watched his programmes before but I have just watched the Jonbee episode for the first time and I am horrified.
The dog I saw was far from happy and relaxed, he was bullied into submission, rigid with fear.

And pinning Jonbee down is rehabilitating him? I would not trust him after being C Milaned. To keep up this treatment of this dog does not build up trust, he will either bide his time to strike back or he will end up a broken dog.
No-one knew this dogs past and what he had been through previously. He was a pussy cat outside in the garden but instead of working with this and finding solutions, CM decided to force him into a very stressful situation pin him and afterwards flip him on his back then got the owner to do exactly the same. That was cruel and nothing to do with positive energy and calm submissive, that was taking the p***s of a frightened creature.
To throw your question back, would you now trust this dog?

I don't remember Cesar actually pinning him down. In the first clip, yes he did handle him to the floor, but he didn't hold him there. He wasn't frightened, he was aggressive. Would it have been better for the owners to never bring him in the house and just have a ticking time bomb waiting out in the yard? Like Skyspirit said, the purpose of getting the dog to 'submit' is to drain all the anxious/aggressive energy (or behaviour if you prefer) so the dog will become more balanced.

Mishflynn, in no way do I have it in for you. I'm not picking on you. I'm trying to answer your questions. You're the one who wants to debate this issue. I'm not going to agree with you just because you think I'm having a go at you. I haven't used any aggressive language towards you, I've just tried to explain a bit.

You say you know about CM, but it's evident from your misunderstanding about why he was getting Jonbee to lie down, that you don't. If you knew about his background then I'm very surprised that you would think he is exploiting dogs for financial gain.

You said that I wasn't allowing you your opinion. You are not allowing me mine and if I do have one you see it is picking on you.

What you are saying is your opinion, it doesn't make your analysis correct. I'm sorry I just don't agree with how you see CM so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Please don't think I am launching any personal attack on you, this isn't the case at all

sorry, have tried to stay out of this... but i couldn't!

i think one of the problems is, that CM sometimes explains what he is doing and why, but what he is saying often doesn't seem to make much sense.. like this whole "draining negative energy" thing.. it's just his interpretation of what he's doing... others may, and do interpret things differently. CM has no proof that negative energy exists, it's just an expression.. the things you see on the show could be happening for reasons other than his own.. just an impartial observation!

There is maybe a difference in terms but being pushed down and held is pinning to me regardless of the time.
If at the end of the session I saw a balanced dog then you could argue then the ends justify the means but I ask again would you now trust the dog?
In the first clip Jonbee was relaxed in the yard, showing no signs of being aggressive or dominant. He was also walked into the house by his owner, lay down and had a muzzle put on, all without causing any problems. The problems started when the owner tried to turn him on his back.
I just think that the dog was made to suffer to a degree that I find unacceptable and for a very poor outcome. What was achieved?

What CM achieved was to get Jonbee to submit - whether he was relaxed or not is down to the observer's opinion. This was a tiny, tiny part of the overall rehabilitation, but the first step with a dog that is aggressive is to get him to acknowledge the human's authority. And that doesn't mean the human is being mean or nasty or cruel. It is just so the dog can achieve a calm, balanced state of mind in order for it to move forward.

As I asked before, do you believe the owners should not have addressed the issue of Jonbee's aggression when inside the house? The owner should be able to handle the dog without any aggression at all regardless of the setting.

Would anyone accept this sort of behaviour from a child? If a child was aggressive like that it would be corrected. So CM was correcting the dogs aggressive behaviour.

I don't think the dog really suffered. Yes it was thrashing about and it looked awful, but it was Jonbee who was doing the thrashing. Cesar wasn't ragging the dog about.

Like I have said several times, to understand his philosophy one needs to read his books. TBH I didn't really understand what he was doing until I read Cesar's Way.

Just to bring up a point that was made a while ago about the dramatic music used on the TV show - I agree it is way OTT.

I agree with you, but that's down to personal opinion and it will factor into whether someone chooses to use his techniques or not.

yes, that's what i mean.. it's personal opinion.. like the existance of god.. some people chose to believe - and in their opinion god does exist.. doesn't necessarily mean it's right.. people believed the world was flat once.. it didn't mean it was right.. it was proven to be incorrect.. no one can prove CM is correct/incorrect so at the moment, peoples opinions are based upon their interprtations of what he's doing..

"draining negative energy" is an expression.. negative energy isn't tangible.. it's an expression he uses to explain what he's doing.. it doesn't necessarily exist and there could be other explanations (again based upon the interpretation of others which may or may not be true).

Sarah, thankyou for explaining what you saw there - that is what I asked for so I do appreciate you taking the time

I guess there is really no way of CM and non CM fans having a meeting of minds on this one because we see totaly different things in these clips
and I really dont see the other point of view here - I just dont see how good was done to the dog
and I guess the reason there is so much 'debate' here is that people on the other side no way see what I am seeing


One point I forgot to mention on that clip
at the start cesar mentions the dog is weary and fearful and says you often see fear in an agressive dog

to me that means that most of the dogs he are dealing with are fear agressive rather than actually agressive
with a dog who is agressive becuase it is scared forcing it to be more and more scared is nasty

to turn it around - if you had a child who was scared of something would you try and address the fear (in one of many ways) or would you just punnish them for being afraid until the child is more scared of showing you its fear than it is of the scary thing itself
in a dog what you end up with is going from one who lets you know when it is uncomfy with a situation and only turning on you if you push it too far to one terrified to warn you that it is unhappy, letting it build up and build up till it snaps with no warning
Then the end result there is a hair trigger dog that is most likely to be PTS for its agression