Would love to pin, prod, electrocute, force etc. Cesar Milan

[Alec Swan]

Horses and dogs have completely different body language. Also horses are prey animals and dogs are predators.
Bit worrying that anyone can think their body language is similar.

There are very clear parallels and similarities between the displays which we receive from both dogs and horses. Both horses and dogs would, in a wild state be 'group living' animals (a herd and a pack), and as they fit in with their group, so they both have languages which are similar.

It behoves those humans who would decide to influence both the horse and the dog, to interpret their language and use it to our own ends. The displays of fear, aggression and acceptance from both dogs and horses, are in fact similar, for those who are able to read and interpret the message which is being offered.

Alec.

 

[crabbymare]

Someone I know who was posted to that area but a different country paid I think around £1500 to get a dog back to the UK if that helps but the best way is to talk direct to the airlines that go where you want and get an idea of what the costs are. I can ask how the fare was worked out but I suspect its by weight for the flight plus any import or export costs

 

[Alec Swan]

……..

For instance, a concise explanation is here: http://en.turid-rugaas.no/calming-signals---the-art-of-survival.html

…….. .

An excellent and very well written article. I'm not sure whether you offered it to contradict my thoughts, or by way of support! I'm in total agreement with the writer, particularly the salient point;

**Dogs use this communication system towards us humans, simply because it´s the language they know and think everyone understands.**, …….. I'd add to that, and it's all that the dog has by way of communication.

Specifically with dogs which are or were in the mists of time, Herding Dogs, collies, GSDs etc., I also find that my body language is probably of greater influence than the spoken word. It's rather a case of 'work in progress', and as others, I often fail, though dogs being fairly forgiving, mostly, we find a way around it!

Alec.

ps. The article you've quoted, and again, thank you, deserves 'Sticky status'!

 

[Booboos]

Dominance, pack theory and leaders are always trotted out in these threads with scant regard for facts.

There is a huge amount of literature on the behaviour of wolves in the wild, by researchers who have spent years observing packs and in at least one case by one very dedicated man who lived with the wolves.

Wolves have a leader but not in the sense used in dog training claims. This is the alpha female (yep female not male) who decides everything for the group. Her job is to ensure the group's survival and she decides when to hunt, what to hunt and how to hunt. She will also decide who gets accepted in the group and who gets thrown out for being too elderly or sick. When she dies packs fall apart. However she never engages other wolves directly.

The beta male is the enforcer, he carries out the alpha male's decisions and will engage other wolves. However within a pack these engagements are ritualistic and rarely result in physical contact. The most likely time for a wolf to be physically harmed by the beta is if the lone wolf requests to join a pack (there seem to be specific howls asking to join packs and specific howls asking for new members) but is then rejected.

 

[planete]

I am working with a trainer who is helping me rehabilitate a rescue fear biter at the moment. What I am seeing is a use of his body language by the trainer, accurate reading of the dog's faintest signals, and rewards for any move from the dog towards the desired behaviours. He is behaving like a benevolent leader, encouraging the dog to let go of his fears and proving to him again and again that he does not need to expect the worst in situations involving humans. It is utterly fascinating to watch and it is working. And the first thing he said the first time he came was: "Take the muzzle off".
I am not big on theory, but it seems to me this trainer is combining the best of all the discussed methods. He does not call himself a behaviourist or a psychologist by the way. I admit he dog in question is not an extreme case but this thread is making me wonder how he would deal with a 'red zone dog' and I am going to ask him.

 

[Love_my_Lurcher]

personally I don't want my dogs to be dominated by me, I don't want them to fear which I equate with being dominated, I want my dogs to choose to be with me because I offer leadership, consistency (even if that is a consistent correction following a repeated action), they feel confident in my presence, I do believe that a dog needs guidance, correction and praise from a calm, focused leader.
dogs that do things because they are dominated or fearful can easily be pushed into defensive aggression or just leaving if it is possible at the point they are pushed too far, my lurcher comes back when we are walking wherever we are walking-if we are in company she will run amongst all the legs till she finds me then go of again unless called close, if she feels threatened by another dog she comes close and puts myself between her and the other dog-she trusts in my leadership to control a situation-the one time she has reacted differently was when she obviously felt uncomfortable with a fishermans intentions, she stood across the front of my legs close enough she was touching me the whole time she was there i could feel the low growl vibrating through her, I have only had one dog who has not been protective and he is the dog that runs off, has been run over twice, lives in his own world and guess what he is the dog that dominating training methods were used on, he has never exhibited any loyalty to anyone and I believe that is because he trusts no-one-he is also the only rescue i have had but he arrived in our house at 5 weeks so I believe too early for his past to be relevant, he is now 16yrs old and still going he is an exceptionally complicated and unusual dog and whilst he has taught me not to try and dominate my dogs I still believe in short sharp reprimands when needed.
I don't want flat soulless, expressionless servants in my dogs or horses I want light and character to shine through in my animals but alongside that I want a willingness to please and be in my company. every animal is different and whilst the fundamentals may be the same the fine tuning is subject appropriate.

shutting an animal down puts it in a place it cannot learn-that is the idea of shut down an animal cannot be mentally scarred whilst in shut down the damage is done on the way there, eg a friends horse fell over in a trailer on the way to a training weekend, they were not aware of the severity of the event until they arrived at their location, they had felt a very brief 'something' during the journey-in fact what they had felt was the partition and horse falling over some 40 = minutes before arriving, when they opened the trailer they found the horse in 'shutdown' on her side with the partition on top of her, she remained in shut down whilst the partition was removed and vet was called by the time the vet arrived (15mins) horse was stood in a stable eating hay she had bruising and minor grazes, not signs of shock-the owner was very worried about re loading the mare to go home so one of the ground work instructors did it for her and the horse walked straight on-the vet and the instructors believed animals cannot retain any memory of things that create or happen in true shut down if they did they would live in a permanent state of fear-shutdown is a natural automatic self defense system is what i have learnt from those I have trained with over the years and shutdown is dangerous as they can come out of it like a rocket.

Very well said. I would also hate it if my dogs saw me as a source of fear instead of a kind leader who is fun to be around. All this talk about dogs being 'servants' makes me sick! Then again I am not surprised considering there are too many people that arrogantly think that their own species is so vastly superior to others.

Anyway I used to be a big fan of Cesar Millan. I used to be one of those devoted fans who would defend him no matter what. Then I got my own dogs and studied their behaviour. I also thought to myself would I really want to 'touch' or 'tap' them on one of the most sensitive parts of their bodies? Would I want to shock them or yank them about with their leads? I arrived at the conclusion that dogs do in fact think for themselves (CM has said on more than one occasion that dogs don't think), that it doesn't matter if dogs are fed before their humans, that it doesn't matter if they exit/enter the house first or if they get out in front on walks. I also realised that dogs can get free reign of the house and will not try to 'take over' the place. There is no way on this earth that I would put a nasty shock collar on them. My Greyhound will yelp if she gets a static shock when her fleecy coats are taken off. My Lurcher (who is usually pretty good at hiding pain) even started to whimper badly when he got a static shock from one of his coats. To say that shock collars don't hurt dogs is a load of rubbish. It is also entirely possible to 'snap a dog out of it' without using force. Loose lead/heel training is also easy enough to accomplish using force free methods.

What Cesar does is a band aid fix. He merely suppresses undesired behaviour. He shuts a dog down (correct term - puts them into a state of learned helplessness) instead of getting to the bottom of what is actually causing the behaviour and working to change that behaviour with counter conditioning. He also floods dogs and there is no denying that he does. Dragging a dog across a tiled floor when the dog was terrified of tiled floors is what you call flooding. He keeps on going on about how dogs are like wolves despite the fact that dogs stopped being wolves many thousands of years ago. He also persists in saying that most of the dogs he meets with behavioural problems are being dominant and hardly ever fearful, insecure or just overly boisterous. He has also made some of the dogs that appeared on his show worse. Look at how he treated Shadow. He was the Malamute mix that Cesar pretty much strung up. The original rescue that had him were so appalled by his treatment that they approached his adopters and managed to get him back. At this point Shadow's behaviour had gotten worse and he had bitten his adoptive mother after she punished him using Cesar's methods. The rescue worked with his using positive reinforcement and his behaviour improved significantly. Then there is Cotton the Eskimo dog who ended up having his teeth filed down. Ruby the Viszla went on to bite one if the kids in the house and family wanted her to be put to sleep. A vet intervened and tried to get CM back on the case, but that is all that is known. Ruby's fate might have been sealed with a lethal injection. JonBee the Jindo ended up in a shelter and his fate is also unknown. Cesar's methods are dangerous and like I said they are a temporary fix. When a dog shuts down because they have been bullied and intimidated their unwanted behaviours can still surface because they have not been modified. They have merely been supressed.

His popularity is definitely fading. His 2013 tour of the UK was cancelled with the excuse being that it was 'double booked'. When in reality there is a huge movement in the UK for him to never return to British soil. He also appeared on the Alan Titchmarsh show ahead of 2013 tour and to give AT a lot of credit he did his research beforehand and was disgusted at the way CM treats dogs. He confronted him about his methods and the fact that dogs are not wolves. All CM did was deflect attention away from the questions. Also have a look at Jordan Shelley. He was the behaviourist who was going to have a weekly segment on the One Show. During his first (and only) segment he used methods that were similar to CM's. After many complaints his segment was cancelled. He has now converted to using positive methods. I think CM perhaps got the message that he is not wanted over here. It is also funny how his second tour of the UK has not been rescheduled. He was also forbidden from demonstrating his methods in Germany as they do not conform to their welfare laws. He was also due to have a big TV interview in Denmark a few years ago, but after the TV station did its research, his interview was cut by at least half. A training session with him was filmed, but never shown. Then again his methods are frowned upon in Denmark and shock collars are banned there too. Since The Dog Whisperer was cancelled, his other shows have not done well. Neither Doggy Nightmares or Leader of the Pack lasted long and time will tell if Cesar 911 is a hit or not.

 

[Love_my_Lurcher]

I would also ask those of you who support him to watch the first episode of Doggy Nightmares. It was quite frankly appalling. I only made it through the first half before switching over to something else. He had been 'helping' a family to adopt a second dog. At the rescue shelter, one of the kids (who both turned out to be obnoxious brats) had gravitated towards one particular dog. Cesar agreed that he was the 'right' dog for them. He allowed both the mother and father and the two boys in a small kennel with the dog. The dog started to become anxious and was showing signs that he might bite. Cesar should not have overwhelmed the dog like that in the first place and it was only after the parents put the youngest boy on the ground (they had been holding him and the boy went to try and touch the dog) that Cesar went into the kennel and intervened. They also had a cat, but Cesar never bothered to check if the dog would be okay with cats and one of the first things the dog did when they took him home was to stalk and chase the cat. There was no gradually introducing the dog to the cat. Unbelievable. The dog had not been toilet trained and guess what the mother said? She said she was busy toilet training a child and didn't need the hassle of training a pet as well! Do you know what Cesar recommended for toilet training? Tethering the dog to a piece of furniture in the house. He said that would also help to restrict the dog's movements in the house (as he doesn't believe in dogs having full access to a house) and would also stop the dog begging at mealtimes. Again that was unbelievable! Does he know anything about basic training?? The show's production team had installed cameras around the house to monitor the dog's progress. What it revealed was shocking. One of the boys (who I think was about five) had gone out to the back yard to see the dog. He proceeded to handle the dog very roughly and the dog ended up biting him. He then kicked the dog several times. He ran into his parents and lied to them saying the dog had bitten him and that he hadn't done anything to the dog. When Cesar viewed the footage with the parents, the expressions on the parents faces suggested that they weren't that bothered about what their son had done to the dog, but more annoyed about him lying. To give Cesar a little bit of credit he did look a bit on the appalled side. But Cesar never said to them that the dog would be better off somewhere else. So he left the poor dog with that nasty family. Shame on him!

There is more that I would like to say on the subject, but this has been a long enough reply.

 

[Love_my_Lurcher]

totally agree
i have been watching him for years and have never seen him' promote 'the use of gadgets, far from it infact and i do not understand how you can confuse dominance with being a strong leader. if you look at the body language of the dogs that live with him, many of which are red zone cases they are not cowering from him in submission when he enters but are calm and relaxed ,the only time i have seen him use an electric collar is as Mister Ted says to teach Daddy not to go near snakes and it was used correctly and successfully.

He has used shock collars a lot more often than that. One time his use of one got a woman bitten. He had zapped her GSD and the dog redirected onto her. So in that instance it was not done correctly (mind you no usage of one is correct) or successfully. I would say a more effective way of not allowing a dog to be bitten by a snake is to not let them off lead in areas where snakes are present.

 

[Love_my_Lurcher]

A very over used phrase dogs shutting down, if you want to see a dog shut down go and look at some of the long term residents in rescue(usually Staffies who dont do well in kennels). These dogs will be sat at the back of the kennel with a blank look on their face, have no interest in people., other dogs or food.

Some of the dogs that Cm deals with are not the sort of dogs anyone on here has dealt with apart from one I know, from what Ive seen of him he has shown great restraint and patience, the dogs are not fixed but are on the right road with guidance to the owners who are obviously given homework to do. The really bad ones are taken back to his centre and get lots of one to one, one dog even after going back to him was not returned to the owner but he found another dog for them which was much more suitable. I must say I love his pitbull Daddy and all his dogs look a really happy balanced pack of dogs which is no mean feat of training.

Why don't you have a read of http://www.thecrossovertrainer.com/one-persons-experience-with-the-dog-whisperer/ I do wonder if the dogs mentioned in that article were happy with the fear of being shocked.

 

[SpringArising]

Why don't you have a read of http://www.thecrossovertrainer.com/one-persons-experience-with-the-dog-whisperer/

I just read it all and I have to say that I am underwhelmed.

There was no concrete evidence to back anything up that she said. In particular:

Also, other things one can’t even imagine, which I know that happened at a herding instructors facility, but are protected by confidentiality agreements and other waivers. Cesar is self-taught and he doesn’t even appear to understand why what he does works [or their long their term effects, for that matter]. There are professionals out there who really do understand the whys and hows of dog behavior and their consensus is that Cesar’s explanations are mostly nonsense.

Where is the evidence for that statement?

 

[Dobiegirl]

Why don't you have a read of http://www.thecrossovertrainer.com/one-persons-experience-with-the-dog-whisperer/ I do wonder if the dogs mentioned in that article were happy with the fear of being shocked.

I did read it and was stunned by the stupidity of this person who owned 2 Dachshunds and then buys a Fila Brasileiro, these dogs are banned in the UK for very good reasons. I belong to a rare breed group and there are quite a few owners of this breed on there, they are very specialised dogs with specialised needs, who is to say that the behaviours her dog exhibited are caused by CM and not just normal traits for the breed. The owner sounds very inept anyway and as has been seen time and time again on CMs programmes its nearly always the owners who have and cause the problems.

I have started watching the first series and found it very informative, maybe the later series are different I dont know as havnt seen them so cant comment but from what Ive seen he uses good old common sense.

 

[SpringArising]

who is to say that the behaviours her dog exhibited are caused by CM and not just normal traits for the breed. The owner sounds very inept anyway and as has been seen time and time again on CMs programmes its nearly always the owners who have and cause the problems.

Completely agree.

 

[california dreaming]

CM regularly used prong collars and shock collars and 'forgets' to mention them. In one of his early episodes, there is a woman who wants her dog to like her cat, so the cat is in a crate and the dog is brought in. The dog has a dark hairy coat, but if you look closely he is wearing a shock collar and CM has the control in his hand. Every time he zaps the dog he yelps and eventually the dog redirects and bites the owner - great training !

In the infamous Shadow episode ( husky mix that shreds his new sweater) the dog starts out with him lead popping him on a prong collar, which makes the dog worse and then you suddenly see the dog with one of his cheesewire slip leads on instead. Shadow was subsequently returned to the rescue as despite CM 'working' with the dog to point where the dog was collapsed on the ground and wet himself, he did not help the dog, in fact made it worse. There was also a video taken of his people winding the dog up before filming to make him worse for the cameras. The dog was rehomed to someone using reward based methods and is doing very well.

He may of started out with a decent knowledge of dogs, but he has sold his soul for fame and money. His programmes are banned in several countries and recently he arrived in Germany to do his show and had to pass their basic dog behaviour test to be allowed to do his show - he failed it.

Cowering, lip licking, ears flat back, head turning away are worldwide well known signs that a dog is stressed or fearful, not 'calm submissive'. Dog training and rehabilitation should be about teaching what you want the dog to do, not just reprimanding the dog every time it gets it( in your opinion) wrong, how often do you see him praise the dog for getting it right !

Yes. This is my point exactly which people seem totally blind to. He regularly uses pronged collars and shock treatment on basic training cases. I believe in the USA spiked collars and shock treatment are sold openly in pet shops so am not surprised he uses them as a matter of course. I really wish trainers like John Rogerson would have their own TV series here in the UK. Then, you would see dog training as it should be done. And I mean ALL types of training from pet to police dog, all types of aggression and other behavioural problems. Don't think he bothers with gun dog though.

 

[TheOldTrout]

There was a horrible episode a few weeks ago where a woman was trying to get her dog to go on a treadmill for its exercise. CM forced the dog onto the treadmill, it was panting with distress while it was on there, then he had the owner trying to drag the dog onto the treadmill while it tried to run away. I'd have thought the sensible thing to suggest was finding a better way of exercising the dog.

 

[SpringArising]

There was a horrible episode a few weeks ago where a woman was trying to get her dog to go on a treadmill for its exercise. CM forced the dog onto the treadmill, it was panting with distress while it was on there, then he had the owner trying to drag the dog onto the treadmill while it tried to run away. I'd have thought the sensible thing to suggest was finding a better way of exercising the dog.

Dogs pant for all sorts of reasons. And it's not about trying to find ways around things and sweeping issues under the rug. It's about tackling the problem head on; something a lot of animal owners unfortunately don't do.