Dr. Dodman on Dog Training

WOW is all I can say. So my question is how come so many people are raving over Ceaser Milan and not this guy? He should have his own show darn it! I agreed with everything he said, awesome!

Great interview. This bit was particularly near and dear to my heart -
 
So whether it#%92s continued petitioning to provide parks for dog owners, these things are necessary, considering how many dogs there are in the country. There are something like half as many dogs as there are cars. If you told car owners they could not park on the streets, what would they do? So there is this massive problem. One in five people owns a dog, something like 40 percent of all American households have a pet. And to make a rule that people can#%92t exercise their dogs off leash might even be one of the reasons that we are seeing an increase in problems these days. The demographics of the human population is such that people are moving into the inner cities, we are becoming a nation of city dwellers, and in the city it is a concrete jungle, as Desmond Morris would say. Life is very bizarre for dogs who live in Manhattan. It is not at all like the natural life. A dog needs to be provided with natural outlets—being able to run and exercise and chase things and do what dogs were bred to do.
 
I was glancing through a book by Dodman recently (not a new book I don't think). It seemed to me that he used to be a little too keen to prescribe drugs to solve behavior problems. There was one case study where a Springer Spaniel was displaying what he deemed predatory behavior toward the family infant, and he cured this with a temporary drug treatment plan, which I thought was odd. However, this new interview indicates that he's taking more of a PR training line these days.

He's very big in this area (understandably).  A friend brought her giant schnauzer to him for a consultation regarding behavior others might deem separation anxiety.  After the 2-hour consult, his final words were "You must never, ever leave this dog alone."
ummm....? huh?

I would have wanted to hear the context in which he told her not to leave the dog alone.  A Giant Schnauzer with true SA can do a LOT of damage.  So, if he felt the prognosis for desensitization was poor, perhaps that wasn't bad advice.  Dunno, without hearing the entire conversation.
As to his use of drugs, I sometimes think he does lean that way, but, again, that could be based on his assessment of the immediate risk to dog & family, or his view about how well they would follow another protocol.  In families with kids, he knows as well as most trainers do, that if the dog makes a mistake, and a child is injured, that usually means the end of the dog.  Better to medicate if the family is ill-equipped to modify the dog's behavior with other means, or if there is any doubt as to safety.  Plus, I'm convinced that, just as some humans seem to have "poor circuitry", dogs may, too.
I have had experience with some of Nick Dodman's "before and afters".  I must say that a couple of the dogs, in particular, had very dramatic improvement on medication.  So, while I don't favor this as the be-all, end-all, I'm not opposed to Dr. D. taking his well-educated guesses sometimes. 

I checked out a book of his from the library last week:
The Dog Who Loved Too Much
 
He did focus more on drug therapy combined with behavioural, diet, and exercise changes.  However,i do believe this book is rather dated... perhaps late 80's early 90's. The chapters are broke down into case histories and individual problems for a specifc dog and their outcome. It was an okay read, not my favourite, but not a total dud either. Their was an intresting section on his work with pit bulls and their obsessive compulsive tendancies such as spinning and tail chasing.
 
I would get another book of his, even more so after this article. I enjoyed that more than the book. Smart man!

That was the book I was glancing through. I may still read it just because I find those case studies interesting, if not always super relevant. I did get the impression that Dodman preferred to use drugs as short term solutions to temporarily stop risky or out of control behavior until the root cause could be eliminated, which seems reasonable.

ORIGINAL: jones

That was the book I was glancing through. I may still read it just because I find those case studies interesting, if not always super relevant. I did get the impression that Dodman preferred to use drugs as short term solutions to temporarily stop risky or out of control behavior until the root cause could be eliminated, which seems reasonable.

 
I haven't read his dog book, but I have the cat book (The Cat Who Cried For Help).  That was the impression I got regarding drugs - kind of like giving anti-depressants to a suicide risk. You aren't necessarily going to cure the problem with the medication, but the meds are going to give you some breathing room to get to the root of the problem.  He did have one case study where he felt the problem could be eliminated, but the family wasn't willing to do the work. So he managed to find a workable drug solution that wouldn't harm the animal too much, and was better than having the cat put down or "gotten rid of."