Cesar Millan New Book Part 1 and 2 Discussion!!!

okay, i am moving my post from the other thread over here..... there is also some effort spent in chapter 1 talking about energy dynamics (and i'm sure much more to follow)..... the thing that really resonated with me is that i see the same thing in any group of people or dogs.... that "like energy" is an attractive force..... when we got our new pup, jasper, i had a feeling he would bond VERY STRONGLY to mandi because 1) jasper was the most asertive pup in the litter and 2) mandi has a very strong personality herself..... and that is exactly what happened..... humans call it chemistry....... the word that comes to my mind when speaking about whether two types of people (or dogs) with similar energy dynamics will mesh together is RESONANCE...... in his first book, he spoke about how, on his walks in the mountains, that the rottweilers would group together while resting as would the german shepherds.... but when walking, there would be one cohesive pack.

lostcoyote

the thing that really resonated with me is that i see the same thing in any group of people or dogs.... that "like energy" is an attractive force..... when we got our new pup, jasper, i had a feeling he would bond VERY STRONGLY to mandi because 1) jasper was the most asertive pup in th

  I think it is also interesting what he says about your dog being a mirror to yourself. You may have issues, feelings etc that you are not even aware of that your dog picks up on. I saw this take place once when I had a air conditioning repair person at my home for the 4th or 5th time, the house was hot, the windows were open and these guys just kept coming out and saying the problem was the coolant and they would fill it up, then 2 days later the same problem. Anyway both dogs had greeted the man and were friendly and playful, this guy made a comment about there being nothing wrong with the air conditioner and the problem was that we had the windows open, which was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. As my anger level shot up to full throttle and I began to start telling this guy off, both dog hair went up and both dogs began to growl at the gentleman. Needless to say this shocked me enough to where I forgot about telling the guy off. Gunnar has never growled at anything and yet here he was clearly unhappy with this man. Hektor had to be taken and placed in his crate, and Hektor had just been playing with the guy a few minutes before. My assumption is that both dogs read my anger and they did it very quickly.

good story about the air conditioner guys and how your dogs mirrored your response.....all in the blink of an eye, they react to energy..... in the other thread that "blew up" today, i wrote about how i had used a ski pole to get my dogs to walk behind me. the pole was like an extention to my arm and during the initial 5 minutes of saler trying to get around me, every time i swung the pole, i swear, there was more communication going on between the eye to eye contact than the ski pole being there. the pole was acting as the no crossing line but my eye contact and pointing my arm and pole was really what was telling him that i was serious... and the eye contact - that energy projection/communication is like instantaneous.... i am now at page 72...... in the 2'cd chapter, he speaks about corrections vs. punishment - a topic that i started over at dog stir that got shut down - lol - go figure.... anyway, i'd like to make some postings in chapter 2 that are best illustrated by direct quoting - but i think i'd have to paraphrase to stay within moderator compliance... or maybe i'll just post the pages so others can read it without me spoiling it (pages 44, 51-52 has some juicy stuff in it that's sure to tick off the +R camp.)

Discipline, Rewards, and Punishment 

 Well I just finished reading chapter 2 for the second time. Cesar is trying to define what he means when he speaks these words.

 Some interesting points he makes are:

"he 100% percent believes in positive reinforcment techniques for training purposes and rehabilitation whenever possible."

"least force needed to accomplish the behaviour you are asking for"

  and he mentions that the positive only's biggest problem with him is that they think he should use clickers and food to redirect behaviour instead of the energy, body language, eye contact and physical touch.

  It is a chapter full of a lot of material and I think he defines well what he means by discipline (he speaks of it as a natural part of the order of the universe) and that discipline is different from punishment but many people jump to the punishment conclusion when you say discipline. All in all I enjoyed this chapter and agree with it. It should silence some of his critics but IMO many of his critics could not be silenced even if he threw hotdogs and clicked at every dog he comes in contact with from now to the end of days.

 As Lost said there is some stuff in here (this chapter) that the positive only's may not like, but to be fair to Cesar he makes a huge effort to explain himself and his explanations make perfect sense to me.

Dang you people are fast, i just finished the first part about the mirror point of view, i saw that in one of his episodes with Emily the pitbull, the owner was a girl who always had what she wanted and never had any kind of rules, boundaries or limitations in her house, her father let her do whatever she wanted therefore she didnt know that dogs actually needed discipline, she was going around life thinking life was not that way and her dog didt get it either

The Tycoon example was a good example that you should never have any favorite dog over another OR help a dog to establish a higher rank in the pack (which in a way is also favoritism) the new dog will fight that favoritism is the new dog knows that the "favorite one" does not have the means to be in a higher rank and there is a never ending fight between the 2 of them 

does it feel to you, after having read chapter 2 a second time, like alice clearman pretty much helped him write the operant conditioning explanation & examples..... feels like that to me.... that he wanted to address it but he doesn't really use this kind of terminology much.... and that it was his reference to alice clearman who probably had much to do with what was said in that section.

well hurry on up e-spencer, we haven't got all weekend ya know - lolol - and when ya read page 44 + 51-52... you'll prolly enjoy a visual to go along with what is said on those pages.... visualize a hardcore clicker trainers face turning red in angst

lostcoyote

does it feel to you, after having read chapter 2 a second time, like alice clearman pretty much helped him write the operant conditioning explanation & examples..... feels like that to me.... that he wanted to address it but he doesn't really use this kind of terminology much.... and that it was his reference to alice clearman who probably had much to do with what was said in that section.

 I didn't really think of it to be truthful but you are most likely correct in that he went somewhere to aquire this information. Cesar strikes me as a very earthy type person, in touch with the world but not really scientific. Maybe primal or natural would be a better word.

 Regardless of where he got the information or if he had assistance in wording it, it demonstrates a willingness to learn and aquire knowledge about those who oppose him. I think this denotes character as many trainers or behaviorlist will be willing to trash another, will scoff at others but will very rarely be humble enough to go and say "teach me all about how you do it".

 It is also obvious to me from watching his early seasons and watching the newer ones that he has evolved. He has not changed his original ideas, but he is evolving in how he communicates them, he is being more careful not to be misunderstood and he is using treats and lures in some of his episodes which he has advocated and believed in all along but has never really incorporated them into this show.

 I admire him even more since reading his second book and watching some of his latest season of shows. I ma very impressed with his humility in describing his background, his distrust of humans, how he was drawn to dogs and how his wife and his family and his work have been instrumental in changing him into a people person who is unafraid to display emotion. To me coming from a guy raised in rural Mexico this is a huge victory for Cesar. He also gives tremendous credit to women and speaks of his admiration for women and how he wants his native country to learn how important women and children are to society.

dgriego

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the book, Cesar Millan, his old book, his life, his beliefs and anything else regarding him and his techniques you can think of. Try and stick to the book but feel free to chime in something if you must. Please refrain from insulting the guy personally, again if you must say he is a ________ or a ______ then please write your on blog about it or PM someone who might be willing to listen to your rants. Also if you must call someone who opposes your opinion these same names then please follow the same guidelines. ( since you are not allowed to insult others perhaps we can agree to use "I did not enjoy your post" as a PM line if you feel you must be insulting)

   Please attempt as best you can to send personal insults (again within the guidelines, I am not advocating that we curse or use offensive or violent remarks) via PM's or Blogs to avoid the thread being locked and to avoid all the red stuff that makes us wonder what that person said that caused their post to be removed. Can we attempt (as best we can) to avoid insulting others, if you must say something insulting then just type " I thought your post was rather rude"... then by so typing we will all be able to read between the lines and know your intent, you will feel better and we can proceed. Hopefully we will not end up with a huge thread of responses that all read "I thought your post was rather rude".

  Was my initial post to much? It was not intended to scare everyone away from the discussion, I am trying to open it up as much as possible so we can avoid the red words and so those who oppose can feel free to state their opinions.

  I have finished part 1 (with the exception of skipping some of the breed portions) and am wondering if anyone else sees this as a dog book sort of crossed with a self help human book?

Hey guys,

 I am glad you started a discussion on Ceasar!! I was wondering if any of you had read his book or seen any of his show. I read his book about a year ago when it first came out and have re-read it many times. I really like Ceasar's ideas. Not only does it make a lot of sense, but it is also dairly simple as long as you follow through and are consistent. Both my dachshunds have responded well to his techniques, yet I also think you have to be careful and know the he is a professional and that not every dog is going to respond well to his techniques.

Two very good points he makes, that I think are what many of us have been saying all along are:

 "I believe there are many ways to help dogs become balanced- and they include both positive reinforcement techniques and humane corrections. Ultimately the goal is the same----to help the dog" (the underline is mine)

"Showing an animal strong leadership and giving it rules is not the same thing as instilling fear and punishing it in an abusive fashion. A quick, assertive touch is not the same thing as a strike. Creating respect is not the same thing as creating intimidation."

hi there dg, you might need to just hang loose in case some of the other folks who said they just got the book need to catch up. i can't reacd chapter 3 today because i have my hands full doing other things at the moment... but i will get to it.

dgriego

 "Creating respect is not the same thing as creating intimidation."

Thats very true, sometimes i wonder if Cesar has been reading all the threads on idog because a lot of people who are against these techniques could have their questions answered in his book 

I finished Chapter 3 basiclly he talks about every single leash and behavioral tool out there in the market, even about the more "house created" ones, he gives his opinion, never trash talk about any regardless how unsuccessful they can be, he just thinks that some of them are less likely to work than others

And as i always have agreed, is not so much about the tool but about the person's attitude 

i've decided to put up a full quote on page 44 of the book because of what's been happening on the "season 4" topic and the PERCEPTION that cm does not use +R or is slowly starting to use it..... here goes:

C.Millan states - quote "Many animal professionals who say thay disagree with (what they perceive to be) my techniques follow the "rewards-only" trend of dog training - TRAINING being the key word. Remember, I DON'T "TRAIN" DOGS. True, that was my original ambition when I came to America, but I quickly came to see that my own special skills could be put to much better use. It appeared to me that this nation's dogs needed much more to make their lives complete beyond the ability to sit, stay, heel, roll over, and fetch the newspaper. What I do is REHABILITATION, although I absolutly 100 percent believe in positive reinforcement techniques for training purposes and rehabilitation, too, whenever possible. My philosophy about discipline and correction with any animal, for any purpose, is that they should be applied with the LEAST FORCE NESSESSARY to accomplish the behavior you are asking for. And I do use positive reinforcement and food rewards all the time, in the appropriate situations. But I also believe there is a time and a place for every technique. The issue that many in the "positive only" school of behavior seem to have with me is that they believe I should be using treats and clickers to redirect some of the behaviors I choose to correct with energy, body language, eye contact, and physical touch. I believe my techniques work on very difficult agressive, obsessive, or anxious cases because they are simple, common-sense approach based entirely on Mother Nature"