I am not a fan follower of Milan, but I can understand the techniques and can see the similarity behind peoples arguments here and the old argument of spanking children for negative behavior, vs rewarding for positive. WELL it’s PERFECTLY clear that removing groundings and spankings have had a HUGE detriment on North American society, especially in our school system. Undisciplined people cause trouble, so do dogs. Unfortunately many of these behavior science specialists, are just that scientists. And EVERYONE knows scientists are SELF-VALIDATING. Like the world being flat, religion not existing, etc.
I can PERSONALLY say that I have had a dog trainer that works similar to Milan come and help me with my dogo/pitbull cross. In a day he was able to show me how to stop my dog from pulling on the leash. Jumping my fence, chasing small dogs, and jumping on people. Each issue had it’s own correction technique that was very effective. The issues were not completely fixed that day, but gave me a platform to work with.
And to all those that think it should be positive only. Why don’t you tell me WHEN AND WHERE in the wild, dogs reward each other for positive behavior? Ummm they don’t. But they DO discipline through wrestling, biting, etc.
Sounds like the people researching animal behavior are the same ones studying human behavior, telling us that we can’t spank our children, can’t ground them, and need to reward vs punish them.
And look where that has gotten us. More kids committing mass murders in schools, because their parents have done nothing but spoil them and leave them to believe there are no consequences for negative behavior.
I really cant beleive all the negatives that people choose to see, Something so simple as CM way of relating to a dog and understanding a dog on their level is wrong? Give me a break just because something is shown to us as common sense and not follwed by science.
Dogs have as much personality has humans….we all know you cant treat the bad apple the same as the good one. You have to understand where they are coming from as you do dogs and by doing so their is your postive reward and accomplisments for dog and owner.
You people just want formulas to follow when the real formula you cant read in a book is the one you create with your dog….that bond that openess to understand comes from those willing to try. Just like their is bad parents there is bad owners and who is in the wrong the ones who dont try from the emontionall side of life!
As a owner of a min pin CM simple techniques and reasoning behind them make sense!!! Plain and simple TRIED TESTED AND TRUE!!!
No negative and abuse here, I got a happy calm min pin who has the engery when she needs to use it outside playing not tearing up the house becuase of CM simple techniques!
It seems clear to me there are a number of things going on here. One is a tv show, and two is how peole feel about Cesar Millan. But Shouldn’t the consistant thing be about our pets themselves? If I say I like Cesar Millan do I have to be suddenly suspect if I have positive results using his tips? I don’t think I’m saying all of the other methods are wrong. I encourage some of you to take a second look at the TV show without the added pressure of analyzing any of the techniques and enjoy it for the variety of dog content. If you can view it enough you will recognize dogs from other episodes. Stay calm and Assertive even if you disagree with me.
In a attempt to learn something from all of the information provided in these discussions I find it hard to understand all of the declarations of absolutes that come into play on the issue. It seems to me many if not most accredited and non accredited dog behavior experts on the anti CM bandwagon swear/declare that dogs conditioned with positive punishment or force training do not and therefore cannot benefit from the experience, issues are simply masked, and that the dog will always display negative backlash behaviors in the near future regardless.
Furthermore it appears that any testimonial responses by others who have had different results and refute that perspective to such absolutes in results are simply………………..dismissed.
Such are the politics and propaganda in the journey on a road to a agenda.
These discussions tell me more about all of our problems and issues with the dog condition in terms of needing help and understanding than anything else.
Robert
As a lifetime student of animal behavior, and of learning how to “read” the body language of other animals, I too am immensely grateful for this piece and the discussion about Millan’s methods.
One of the things that has been mentioned here that I will second is that those that defend his methods or see no harm are those that are not savvy to reading dog body language and understanding what’s really going on for the dog. When I started consulting on horse behavior, I realized quickly that things that seemed very evident to me are not necessarily evident to the average horse owner. The same is true of dog owners, who, unfortunately, do not by and large know – or even really WANT to know – how to read their dogs’ signals and body language.
I am now back training dogs for one of the big chains, and am extremely alarmed at how many people I see coming into the store trying to use scruff grabs or alpha rolls!!! on dogs in the store, and spouting Millan-isms as fact to other pet owners. I try quickly to intervene when I can, but so many, like the fans here, do not want to hear any criticisms of their cult leader. There will always be the ones that want to take shortcuts and therefore will ignore any advice aimed at improving the welfare of the animal, because their goal is not to have a healthy, happy pet, but to have a predictable pet that will ALWAYS do what the owner wants – in other words a slave. Those people have no interest in having a cross-species relationship based on mutual trust and respect. They want slaves that serve as some kind of ego-booster for them. On the other hand, there are many viewers of his show that I know would feel awful if they realized how much fear they instill in their pets when they try these methods on their own.
I am immensely grateful to all the behaviorists who posted here. Your comments help me to fine-tune my interactions with those customers who come in riding the “pack leader” bandwagon. I actually questioned the natural horsemanship movement when I first started studying horses because of my sense that the horse surely does NOT think we are other horses, so why would we think that trying to “communicate” with them using “their language” would come even close to working. The same holds true here. I am quite certain now that dogs, horses, guinea pigs, birds…no other animal thinks we are the same species as them, so appeals to using “their language” are baseless.
As for those that come in the store, I have only seconds to say something so it is usually “please don’t do that – it’s a good way to get bitten.”
In my opinion, the argue shouldn’t rely if Cesar Millan’s metohds are based on “Scientific Studies” or not! As a researcher, I must say that many of our “inventions” came from empirism, sometimes from a feeling, not only from an academic approuch.
Yes, I could not agree more when people say that we can train our dogs without harming them! But the question is what is really harmfull for a dog? Is that harmfull for all dogs? Is it ok to raise a dog (or anything) without limits? Are we, human adults, able for doing everything we want to? I’d like to receive answers to these questions… I think they must be in role, instead of dealing this subject personaly!
That’s some things we must consider: with CM’s Dog Whisperer TV Show, the numbers of pet owners who decided to take care of their pets increased a lot (in Brazil we have a similar program called Dr. Pet and the trainner uses positive reinforcment), we have to consider the fact that CM controls a numerous pack and that he gets a confident energy and posture!
In fact, we have a nice arguing here!
his training is like crap.
“oh u wanna be the pack leader.” whats that all about? plus it’s not all about being domonint over your dog. he also uses the alpha roll. it doesnt even help. it just makes the problem worse because it makes an insecue dog feel even more insecue. in fact it makes the dog fear its owner. when he deals with aggresive dogs why does he let the dog strike then tell it off with a leash jerk or the alpa roll. shouldnt u prevent the dog from striking instead of letting the dog strike? cause thats how u fix the problem. if u want training advice follow victoria stilwell, cause she trains positively. “instead of your dog fearing you, your dog’s respecting you,” she said in the dog days of summer episode.
As far as the “BIG CHAIN STORE” training goes I wish someone would compile some data/stats on the number of dogs that fair poorlly from the attempts at using a one size fits all approach. I know for a fact that often the training methods that are used DO NOT WORK…
I bet if you do some research and check out a half dozen of the big dog chat sites you will read testimonies to this effect that will keep you busy for years to come.
So much for absolutes and agendas
cheers