Cesar Milan

It is important for *your* body language to be calm and assertive. Ever notice your dog picks up on your moods, be it anger, depressed what ever.
So if you are very meek, mild non assertive or confidant of yourself, it is likely the dog will pick that up and not take you so seriously. Dogs are pack animals, right? They have a pack leader and the rest are followers. Having said that, if your dog thinks of you as a follower and not a leader, then he assumes that roll.So I don't really think he is too far off base with his analogy or theory.

Jen-I think to us it's "obvious" but for the people reading his books or watching his shows it might not be.  He does talk about calm, assertive energy a lot and I believe he is right about that.  Some of the things he does are a little too much and I wouldn't try them but I HAVE learned from him too.  He set my mind at ease after I heard him say "dogs live in the moment, so stop feeling bad for what happened to him", "that's over now", stuff like that.  For some reason, when he said it, I took it differently than when anyone else had tried to tell me that. 

Lol I was going to read your attachment but it was just wayyy too long.  I would have to say I don't buy into the channeling of the energies...I buy it as much as I buy the pet psychic.  (ohh look a cat...I am sensing some stand-offish-ness...    GO FIGURE!!!) 
[sm=rofl.gif]

You know in reading that it is almost like reading a Dr. Phil book, you know it all, but for some reason the way they put it together, makes it click.  I don't know but watching CM and the way he trains makes me want to have my dog be a better dog.  Maybe that is why he appeals to so many he is pretty commom sense and straight to the point. Now don't flame if you don't like Phil, it was just an observation.
 
Julie

You can call it energy. Maybe that's a popular word in California. But, in my vernacular, it's an attitude. Dogs can smell fear and can read subtle changes in posture. If you, as owner, project in posture and attitude the signature of alpha, the dog will follow. In a group of dogs, one will try to assume alpha. There will be struggles. So, sometimes, your dog may struggle with you to be alpha.
 
 

I don't really think he is touching on anything new here. I've read much the same thing in other dog books as well as in horse books.

I once asked someone how you would teach a dog no without physical correction and they said you could say no to an unwanted behavior and then offer a toy instead. Then, they would obey "no" in return for a greater reward.
 
Yet, if you are somewhere that you don't have toys or just ran out of treats and your dog is leashed, then if you have to say "no", is that a physical correction while they are straining on the collar and leash after whatever is interesting to them?
 
Sometimes, I think CM is right in that people think of dogs as humans, when they are not. I let my dog sleep on the bed but he is not my equal, and he knows it. The show is certainly about confused dogs that act out and we see the drastic measures he may take. I've yet to read the book and someone else had posted here that his training consisted of leash pops, not rewards, which fits in with his statement, "exercise, obedience, rewards - in that order."
 
Yet, I have accomplished obedience with rewards, sometimes treats, sometimes play, sometimes praise. I have only used the scruff to enforce the word "no" and to physically control him. Once, when the Spawn of Satan behind us was throwing stuff at him and poking a stick through the fence, Shadow was getting too excited and wouldn't listen to me. (This was not long after we got him.) So, I grabbed his scruff and walked him into the house.
 
So, I may not use much of CM's techniques, I agree with the idea that humans need to understand dogs better in order to train them. The dog needs exercise, limits, and a clear knowledge of who is the boss.

ORIGINAL: ron2
Once, when the Spawn of Satan behind us was throwing stuff at him and poking a stick through the fence, Shadow was getting too excited and wouldn't listen to me. (This was not long after we got him.) So, I grabbed his scruff and walked him into the house.

 
 
[sm=rotfl.gif][sm=rotfl.gif][sm=rotfl.gif]   You have one of those living by you tooo?????    ROFLMAO
 
I caught him running a stick along the fence making Nigel chase him saying, "Bark dog Bark".....I thought, "(something I can put into print in public) and then thought about lettting him in the yard to 'play' with the 'nice doggy'"

The owners of the border collies had given my note to them to the parents of the boy. After that, if I walked out in the back yard, they would go inside or in the front. Anything but discipline the child and teach him not to pester animals. Shadow plays hard and his first owner's husband can still rough-house with him. We're built to take it but a child can get hurt. BTW, Shadow plays just fine with his previous owner's children. Evidently, my catching him was not the first time he threw stuff at the collies. He gets in fights at school and the lady of the house won't allow her grandchildren to play with  him. When I was a kid, parents were in control, not children.As far as I can tell, the boy has backed off. Otherwise, I would, seriously, call the police.
 

Hello there

I think we agree on many things Ron. Dogs are not humans, and humans are not dogs. Some form of physical correction, and be it only passive restraint, certainly is unavoidable. People do need to understand their dogs better. We agree wholeheartedly on all these points.

The issue that myself and many others have with CM, then, are as follows (I will be brief, and go into depth as needed in future posts. I will furthermore limit myself to two of the more important issues for now.):

a) His "theory" is no such thing. CM has a one-size-fits-all approach to explaining aberrant dog behavior, and it always seems to boil down to leadership issues. Now, were this a theory, as a previous posting claimed, then this "theory" would be falsifiable (one of the standard markers of a theory per se). However, you can always say - as CM does - that the dog is simply confused about leadership. If he sits in the corner and is afraid of everything, he just lacks a leader. If he tries to bite you, he just wants to lead himself.... and so on. There is no possible circumstance where you cannot fit this sort of explanation - this god-of-the-gaps-approach - to the circumstances at hand, and consequently it can never be shown to be a false theory. Hence it is an empty claim. As such it has potentially harmful consequences in that it overlooks or minimizes the real issues and problems at hand.
Do some dog need 'more leadership'? Of course. But many disturbed or misbehaving dogs do so for all sorts of reasons, only one of which is leadership related. CM completely overblows the importance of leadership issues as the basis for misbehaving or aggressive dogs, and woefully neglects many other important aspects that play into this.

b) CM almost exclusively works with negative reinforcement/positive punishment. Modern (that is, conducted anywhere in the last 30 years) behavioral research clearly demonstrates this as not being the most efficient way to train a dog, nor is it the best method to deal with aberrant behaviour. Does that mean that you can deal with all dogs under all circumstances without any physical corrections? No. But in most cases, real corrections (as opposed to mild restraint, maybe the occasional leash pop), as for instance delivered by the choke chains he uses - not to mention even harsher methods - are not needed at all. CM's 'positive' part of training is mostly praise - which he seems to believe to hold some mystical power. The dog works for me, because I am a leader! Again, research - and common sense for that matter - shows this to be nonsense. His praise is a safety cue, that is, it signals avoidance of punishment; that is what a CM dog learns to work for.

Now, you might ask, what could we do different in practice (neglecting theoretical issues for now, again for brevities sake)? First and foremost, basic training: many of the problems associated with this type of dog spontaneously improves as better attention and impulse control is established. As a dog learns to work for positive attention and rewards, a more stable and satisfying bond between owner and dog can be formed. The goal of basic training is to provide such dogs with a set of unambiguous social boundaries and expectations; above all, show them systematically how to obtain what they want and need by means of cooperation.

Whereas cooperative transactions serve to promote feelings of security and trust via reward, agonostic and domineering transactions may produce significant conflict and a variety of emotionally stressful states or interactive tensions: anxiety, frustration, anger, fear, aggression, and so forth.

For more of the science of this and if you are interrested, see for instance:
Mugford RA, Canine behavioral therapy
O'Farrell V, Manual of Canine Behavior
Lindsay SR, Applied Dog Behavior and Training Vol.3 (I can only highly recommend all three volumes of his.)


Have a great week everyone

Are you Danny from the previous forum. Anyway, now I better understand the god-in-the-gaps approach and how it is non-falsifiable, in that it is, indeed, a blanket explanation to cover everything, whether it is actually descriptive, or not.
 
I agree that it does not cover everything. I learn a lot by observing, one of the cornerstones of the scientific method. I won't go into a lot of detail but I've had to do electrical engineering in my job and I had to do some of it on my master electrician test some years ago. So, think of me as a ditch-digging applied or field electrical engineer. In fact many times, I have had to re-calculate something because the presented engineering on the prints was, simply put, wrong.
 
Anyway, when my dog eats, once or twice, he wants to chase the ball and bring it back and eat some more. At the outset, this looks like play. And a dominant teacher might say that I'm doing wrong by not "forcing" him to concentrate on eating. I began to realize that he his hunting. He runs out, brings back the kill, and continues eating. So, true, the god-in-the-gaps approach would be wrong.
 
For some reason, I better understand you, now.

Hello Ron

Yes, we briefly talked about this in the old forum already, and as was my impression now, we really do seem to agree on all the important basics. []

Nice dog you got there!

With all the critics of CM and the show, several things need to be seen first: This is what common sense tells me:

1. It's a TV show thus it is EDITED in certain way(s) to portray a situation and to cut run time. You won't see him explain the proper methods in using a slip/choke collar other behind-the-scenes. So you have all these 'holes' that aren't explained thus leaving all the critics to spout.

2. Just because it works for him, it might not work for you.

3. If it works for you then fine, if not, don't rain on someone else's progress. Sheesh


The critiques from other "in the knows" reminds me of old days with a group of engineers arguing on methods that could be done on a certain project in which the end result would be the SAME.

CM and probably others are just showing you ANOTHER way while others will show you ANOTHER.

____
Anyhoo...
Back in the late 80's when I had my Eskie Spitz, we took her to school in which the lady told us to use the "slip/choke" collar during training. She told us correctly how to use it. Our dog learned perfectly fine.

NOTE: most stores don't educate the consumer about the proper use of these types of collars!

Dogs do learn "perfectly fine" on a slip collar, if your definition of "fine" is that the dog learns to obey.  My problem with that is that I want my dogs to problem solve and to seek learning.  I enjoy that joy that they express when they figure out how to "make" mom dispense the reward (whether it be food, toy, praise).