What She Said...

You can see it right here in this forum. The search button can help. How many anti-CM threads are in here? How many anti-other trainers threads can you find?

Well, I think that many of those threads came as a result of the management here devoting a whole section to him.   How many other trainers or behaviorists have ever had their own section here???  At any rate, I have no objection to discussing any trainer or training method, but the point others are trying to make is that we will always have situations where we come down on different sides, whether the trainer is Ian Dunbar or Fred Hassen.  It really is about a fundamental difference in our assumptions about dogs, how they learn, whether we ascribe to some person's declarations about those things, or we ascribe to the empirical evidence that has been collected thus far.

Years ago, I was like most other trainers who told clients not to allow their dogs on their beds.  Well, it turns out that a study was done that showed that the dogs most likely to develop aggression by sleeping in the owner's bed were those that did so during the first two months of life (http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0195561602001328).  So, now, I tell people just to wait until the dog is a bit older, and has a few obedience skills, and that if they don't mind the dog being there and the dog isn't causing any problem (snoring?) then just relax about it. But, I'm sure there are others who don't even know about the study, and if they did would *still* advise people not to let the dog sleep with them.  Why? Because they just believe, no evidence to the contrary withstanding.

side-bar: is that the same Douglas Adams that brought us the hitchkiker series? A true genius in any respect. For describing the blatterbeast. A creature so dumb that if you wrapped a towel around your head, it would figure that since you can't see it, it can't see you. Voracious appetite but daft as a brush. Or the friendly words written on the Guide, "Don't panic." As well as the description of the computer that was built to replace another computer. When humans asked the computer the question, "Is there a God?", the computer replied, "There is one, now."

Or one of the most extreme tortures was to have a Vogon read poetry "at" you. The only thing more painful was the poetry of Elizabeth Barret Browning. (I so appreciate wry british, self-deprecating humor.)

Anyway, OT side-bar over, continue.

Chuffy

Surely beliefs and practises SHOULD be questioned, and survive only if they stand up to robust,logical debate?  Reading the very heated CM debates on here made me think of that article more times than I can count.

HI 

I guess that in my own life that it has consited of two halves. The first half was getting enough practice in to qualify for some pretty interesting labels, and the second half living with them but in a way that is fufilling and interesting. One of the things that kept me going was a dream of one day having a house and a Labrador.  I got my Labrador to help celebrate a kind of responsibilty milestone, i think the american phrase is being clean and sober for a significant period. I also had a house (very small). After prolonged homelessness a room seems great....A house seems like  a mansion.

I am by nature a fairly pedantic and logical kind of person . When i got my Labrador we got introduced to the dog world double speak and it bothered me greatly. Still i soldiered on. I am one of those people that makes a habit of asking akward  questions, the ones that get you evicted from public meetings, or asked quietly to leave various clubs :)

There were two problems with  this clap trap. The first was the insanity of the solutions the total lack of reason. I learnt to clicker train of the web, and you would have thought that i was asking to commit heinious acts in public!! Only a decade ago, most clubs had a ban on food on the grounds and as for toys.....

The second problem was the networks in place supporting the beliefs. It seemed highly reminscent of the networks that keep the poor sods that drink alcoholically in bars stuck there. I don't have numbers, but there are some interesting things about the backgrounds of an awful number of the better trainers about the place.

If we shut up about CM, we normalise it, we probably scare good reasonable people off owning dogs. I just think we should start focusing on the achilles heel.

How is CM still going?

Why are the supports still there?

Who is supporting him?

What damage does this lack of reason do?

Yep, that's the man, Ron.  

spiritdogs

Well, I think that many of those threads came as a result of the management here devoting a whole section to him.   How many other trainers or behaviorists have ever had their own section here???

So do you think Jamie belongs to a religious cult? Is she pro CM? What about the old "clicker section"? That was almost demanded by some posters. Still CM attackers where not happy having each their own section, they wanted to keep the attack going. This says it all:

Personal Champ

Jaime created the CM section because of the conflicts it brought about, and I created the Clicker section per request.

Do you see the difference? Both sections created because of the attackers behavior. Once again, is just people in the world that can not stand knowing that their "beautiful beliefs" are not followed by everybody, just like the guy who created the website in the other thread. Put together a lot of those and give them power on their country and that's how the religious wars start

Religious cult indeed

poodleOwned

If we shut up about CM, we normalise it........ I just think we should start focusing on the achilles heel.

Do i need to say more? Thanks for proving my point

As far as I know, the only religious cult Jaime belongs to is the Markie Fan Club, and I am a card carrying member of that one, too.  

How is CM still going?

I think he's still going for the same reasons people still spank their kids.  They think it works.  We've had many discussions here on that topic, too.  My own take is that, having helped raise two great boys who were not mine, and, therefore, whom I could not spank even had I wanted to, the philosophy that worked is pretty much "say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean."   The same applies to my dog training philosophy.  Explain clearly to the dog what is expected, reward it when it happens, don't use ineffective or inappropriate punishments, and let bad behavior extinguish, because it will if the perpetrator never receives either reward or recognition for it.

Why are the supports still there?

Because not enough people write to NGC?

Who is supporting him?

People who are not great students of dog behavior.  People supported Hitler, too.  Support is not an indication of rightness.

What damage does this lack of reason do?

In some cases, it gets people bitten.  In others, it causes dogs to be treated badly.  I wish I had a nickel for every time I've seen a dog get kicked on his walk (or was it a forced march) because some idiot saw Cesar do it on the show.  If you need a disclaimer, especially one which people are not taking seriously, then your show needs to go.

ron2

side-bar: is that the same Douglas Adams that brought us the hitchkiker series?

That's right!  The trilogy in five parts.  If you haven't read Salmon of Doubt yet, you should.  Released after his death, all kinds of Adams snippets in there

spiritdogs

At any rate, I have no objection to discussing any trainer or training method,

And you have too... I've seen you start threads about trainers or methods and somehow, they don't seem to take off.  Seems, with CM, you either love him or hate him.... At least it generates discussion!

spiritdogs

How is CM still going?

I think he's still going for the same reasons people still spank their kids.  They think it works. 

Often, it appears to.  Perhaps not well, perhaps not humanely, perhaps not in the longterm, but as we have discussed over and over... human nature means that many folks want a quick fix.  Is there a cure for THAT?!

spiritdogs

If you need a disclaimer, especially one which people are not taking seriously, then your show needs to go.

Amen to that.

Plus, "if you do X, Y and Z, YOU TOO can be a great pack leader", kind of diminishes the impact of the disclaimer.  It says, "hey guys!  do what I do and your dog will stop doing all those annoying little things you don't like!"

 CM's methods do work. After a fashion. And they have done for many many years before he was ever a celebrity. I think it's the understanding of why they work that is lacking. There's always going to be controversy when people feel passionately about something. People are about as superstitious as dogs. If something worked for them once, they can become quite attached. Ever caught yourself checking over and over again if there's money sitting on the side of the road in that place you one day found money sitting on the side of the road? We're hardwired to do things like that. But give us a reason why we should and we will jump on it and wave it around while we keep checking for money in a place we know deep down almost never has money.

Most people will never try taking a different route in case there's even more money lying around on the side of that road. It's a big risk. What if there's no money, but a hole you put your foot in and end up breaking your ankle? Best to stick to the route that once had money. 

espencer

They are the ones that dont respect someone else's way of thinking.

This concept is a bunch of vipers waiting to happen. And is strongly culturally based.  There is always tension about indidvidual rights and the rights of vulnerable people and creatures.

I will give a cultural example. in Australia, there was a serial killer who went on a spree and killed 31 people. The national consensus with a few grumbles was for the government to buy back weapons that could cause this kind of destruction and to destroy them. The condtions for owning any gun were made much tighter and the rules for storing them a lot tougher.

When i travelled to the USA soon after, the consensus seemed to be that not enough people were armed well enough so that they could take this person out.I was really taken a back , but not my country not my rules.

On top of that, that serial killer is still alive as we don't have the death sentence here.

poodleOwned

espencer

They are the ones that dont respect someone else's way of thinking.

 

 

This concept is a bunch of vipers waiting to happen. And is strongly culturally based.  There is always tension about indidvidual rights and the rights of vulnerable people and creatures.

I will give a cultural example. in Australia, there was a serial killer who went on a spree and killed 31 people. The national consensus with a few grumbles was for the government to buy back weapons that could cause this kind of destruction and to destroy them. The condtions for owning any gun were made much tighter and the rules for storing them a lot tougher.

When i travelled to the USA soon after, the consensus seemed to be that not enough people were armed well enough so that they could take this person out.I was really taken a back , but not my country not my rules.

On top of that, that serial killer is still alive as we don't have the death sentence here.

Well, I, for one, think it's a far more brutal punishment to take a person's freedom away for life, and make him live among the general population of criminals who will further brutalize him, than to just kill him and then he's free (of course, if you are religious at all you know he really wasn't free either way).

I also think there is a huge difference between not respecting someone's right to think the way they want, and one's own right to disagree with them.  Disagreeing is *not* disrespectful in an of itself, and is a fundamental right in this country, thank goodness.  It is only when things get personal that it becomes non-decorous.  So, it would be fairly disrespectful, for example to call CM an idiot, but it is *not* disrespectful to call the methods he uses cruel, wrong, dated (pick an adjective).  That's an impersonal assessment of what he does, not who he is.  As far as who he is, I think he genuinely believes that what he does is right, and I think he is a charitable individual.  However, I also think his methods are often flat wrong, dangerous to the public, and not in sync with the scientific knowledge we have about canis familiaris.

Chuffy

spiritdogs

At any rate, I have no objection to discussing any trainer or training method,

 

And you have too... I've seen you start threads about trainers or methods and somehow, they don't seem to take off.  Seems, with CM, you either love him or hate him.... At least it generates discussion!

Maybe I should start a thread about Fred Hassen.