Pen Current Research

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Questions about ‘aversive’ training By Tim Hyland


Cesar Millan is one of the superstars of the canine world.

As the host of the National Geographic Channel show, “Dog Whisperer,” Millan has rocketed to fame based on his ability to reform and save misbehaving, over-aggressive dogs. It’s something he accomplishes through “firm” discipline—a “firm correction, a firm grab on the neck, which is what dogs do to each other,” as he says on his web site.

Millan’s show attests to his success, and he’s earned millions of loyal followers.

But according to a new study from Penn’s School of Veterinary Science, Millan’s approach may not be quite so effective as he makes it out to be. In fact, the study suggests “firm” discipline—and so-called “aversive” discipline techniques, in which dogs are corrected using aggressive measures—may actually backfire, making dogs more likely to lash out at other dogs, people and even their owners.
According to the study, published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, 25 percent of dogs trained with “aversive” techniques react to their training with an aggressive response of their own. Dogs trained in a more positive, encouraging manner, by contrast, showed almost no aggressive behavior.
“It’s really the first study of its kind—it’s a kind of pilot study,” says Meghan Herron, a Penn Vet resident and the lead author of the study. “But it’s just the start of the science that needs to happen.”

Herron says the idea for the study came from her experience at Penn Vet, where aggressive behavior is far and away the No. 1 reason why people seek the help of behavioral veterinarians.

To attempt to understand the roots of this aggression, Herron and her colleagues—Frances S. Shofer and Ilana R. Reisner, both from the Department of Clinical Studies—wrote up a 30-question survey for dog owners who visited the hospital. The survey asked the owners what kind of techniques they used to control their dogs’ aggression and what kind of results they had seen. The owners were also asked where they had learned about the training techniques they used.

In total, 140 surveys were collected. The researchers found that the most commonly used methods of training included such aggressive techniques as hitting the dog (43 percent), growling at the dog (41 percent) and physically forcing the dog onto its back (31 percent). This, despite the fact that these techniques showed the tendency to produce the direct opposite response owners sought. A quarter of the dogs trained with aversive techniques showed aggressive behavior in response.
Herron says these techniques can fail because, rather than helping owners exert “dominance” over their pets, they instead make dogs fearful. That fear, then, manifests itself in aggression.

Even still, the aversive methods persist, simply because they’ve been around so long. The popularity of “Dog Whisperer” doesn’t help matters.
“It’s a very popular [school of thought],” she says. “If you look in the old textbooks, they basically say if your dog is aggressive you need to assert your dominance. This idea has been around for a long time.”

That’s why Herron says it will likely take years of work to begin to convince owners of the potential flaws in aversive training. That work will most likely take the form of studies like hers, as others in her field work to produce evidence supporting an idea that she and her colleagues already believe in: That positive training is more effective than negative training.
“In the behavioral field, they’re cheering [about this paper],” she says. “But we’ve been on this page for years. It’s the public … and the vets that we want to reach.”
Originally published on March 5, 2009

Penn Current: Research: Questions about ‘aversive’ training

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Dominance reduction’ training approaches may worsen dogs’ behaviours
May 22nd, 2009 - 1:24 pm ICT by ANI -
Washington, May 22 (ANI): A Bristol University expert has debunked the age-old belief that aggressive dogs have the desire to assert their “dominance” over people and other dogs.

Dr Rachel Casey, a senior lecturer in Companion Animal Behaviour and Welfare, spent six months studying dogs freely interacting at a Dogs Trust rehoming centre, and reanalysing data from studies of feral dogs.

The researcher observed that individual relationships between dogs are learnt through experience rather than motivated by a desire to assert “dominance”.

In the study paper, Casey’s team say that dogs are not motivated by maintaining their place in the pecking order of their pack, as many well-known dog trainers preach.

The academics also say that training approaches aimed at “dominance reduction” vary from being worthless in treatment to being actually dangerous and likely to make behaviours worse.

According to them, instructing owners to eat before their dog or go through doors first will not influence the dog’s overall perception of the relationship - merely teach them what to expect in these specific situations.

They warn that techniques like pinning the dog to the floor, grabbing jowls, or blasting hooters at dogs will make dogs anxious, often about their owner, and potentially lead to an escalation of aggression.

Dr. Casey said: “The blanket assumption that every dog is motivated by some innate desire to control people and other dogs is frankly ridiculous. It hugely underestimates the complex communicative and learning abilities of dogs. It also leads to the use of coercive training techniques, which compromise welfare, and actually cause problem behaviours.”
The researcher added: “In our referral clinic we very often see dogs which have learnt to show aggression to avoid anticipated punishment. Owners are often horrified when we explain that their dog is terrified of them, and is showing aggression because of the techniques they have used - but its not their fault when they have been advised to do so, or watched unqualified ‘behaviourists’ recommending such techniques on TV.”

Veterinary Director Chris Laurence MBE, said: “We can tell when a dog comes in to us which has been subjected to the ‘dominance reduction technique’ so beloved of TV dog trainers. They can be very fearful, which can lead to aggression towards people.”

Laurence added: “Sadly, many techniques used to teach a dog that his owner is leader of the pack is counter-productive; you won’t get a better behaved dog, but you will either end up with a dog so fearful it has suppressed all its natural behaviours and will just do nothing, or one so aggressive it’s dangerous to be around.”
The study has been published in the Journal of Veterinary Behaviour: Clinical Applications and Research. (ANI)

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‘Dominance reduction’ training approaches may worsen dogs’ behaviours

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VIN News Behaviorists Question Dominance Theory in Dogs Send us feedback about this article

February 5, 2009
By: Timothy Kirn
For The VIN News Service


Cesar Millan, television’s ‘Dog Whisperer,’ has legions of fans, including some dog trainers. But a group of veterinary behaviorists is not among them.

The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB) issued a new position paper aimed at countering some of the pervasive influence of his show, which airs on the National Geographic Channel, and of Millan's training approach, which is based on what the position statement calls outdated dominance theory.

“The AVSAB recommends that veterinarians not refer clients to trainers or behavior consultants who coach and advocate dominance hierarchy theory and the subsequent confrontational training that follows from it,” the position statement says.

That statement was initiated with Millan in mind, says Dr. Laurie Bergman, of Norristown, Pa., a member of AVSAB's executive board.

“We had been moving away from dominance theory and punitive training techniques for a while, but, unfortunately, Cesar Millan has brought it back,” she says.

Millan’s program began airing in September 2004. It has a large following and has twice been nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program.

On his show, Millan is invited into homes to work with incorrigible pooches, many that have failed with previous trainers. Usually, he identifies the problem and begins immediate remediation.

He says he is really retraining the owners, not the dogs, and generally notes that his sessions are just a beginning. But he does read the dogs and responds to them with insight and intuition. He often is shown calming and subduing an animal in a short time with minimal effort, communicating with the animal mostly by gaze and posture. Sometimes, the results appear nothing short of miraculous.

Dogs are pack animals and packs are ruled by a dominant alpha male, and that is the problem in the majority of unruly situations he addresses on the show, Milan says. The owners are either milquetoasts or inconsistent, and the dog is lost.

“What I am doing is training the human to meet the needs of the dog,” he has stated. “So, by doing that, we are going to eliminate fear, anxiety and aggression.”

Millan asserts himself with the dogs and uses a number of negative-reinforcement, or correction, techniques such as alpha rolls (the dog is rolled onto its back, a submissive position) and flooding (the dog is exposed to something that causes it anxiety and is not allowed to escape, to desensitize it).

He also has been shown choking a dog on the end of a leash until it fell onto its side, gasping for air.

That is the exactly the trouble with him, say the veterinarian behaviorists. His techniques are likely to have only a temporary effect and may be harmful in some instances.

The American Humane Association sent a letter to National Geographic in 2006, complaining that Millan's techniques were “cruel and dangerous.” The association asked that the program be removed from the airwaves.

The AVSAB position statement says that the ideas that dogs act like pack animals and that packs have a strict, dominant alpha-dog hierarchy are erroneous.

Dogs have lived with humans for 15,000 years, and they evolved as scavengers, not hunters. So it is not legitimate to compare dogs with wolves and wolf packs, which do hunt, according to the statement. The evolutionary pressure on dogs was that the least shy animals were the most successful in ransacking human refuse. Today's free-roaming dogs live in small, less cohesive groups rather than packs and are often alone.
Moreover, the notion that every pack has an aggressive alpha male that rules over all the others originated from observations of captive wolves. But, research on wild wolves suggests that wolf packs are not rigidly controlled by a single domineering male, according to L. David Mech, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey who has studied wild wolves in Michigan and Northern Minnesota for more than 40 years.

Mech says a pack usually has an alpha pair and that most of the rest of the pack is that pair’s offspring. That means the lead male never fought for dominance but merely reproduced. The lead male does not always lead during hunts or in anything else for that matter.

In fact, Mech says he generally objects to the term “alpha” male — a term he once used — because what it implies is not accurate.

Dominance theory leads to an antagonistic relationship between human and pet and to negative and coercive training methods, the AVSAB statement says. A punishment approach can backfire.“
It won’t change the underlying state of fear, so the fear will come out when the stimulus is no longer there,” says Dr. Sophia Yin, of the University of California-Davis and an AVSAB Executive Board member.

Though Millan has been criticized by a number of different groups and individuals, he has supporters.

A New Yorker profile published in 2006, compared Millan's movements and posture to that of a dancer’s and described his ability to communicate with dogs as masterful. Because of the precision of those movements and the messages they convey, he was equated to a therapist who works with autistic children.

“I have never seen Mr. Millan be abusive,” says Martin Deeley, executive director of the International Association of Canine Professionals.

Millan does not use coercive techniques exclusively, but also uses positive reinforcement, says Deeley, who has worked with Millan and knows him well.

That combination is what most trainers use today, Deeley says. For a while, the pendulum in training approach was swinging toward the exclusive use of positive reward, but now it is swinging back.

“I think what people have found is that positive reinforcement and reward is not working with every dog,” he says. “I don’t think any dog can be trained using only positive reinforcement.”

On the show, Millan says: “I always say my way is not the only way. It is just one way. The people that follow me feel that it works.”

Deeley considers Millan’s instinctual rapport and ability to communicate with dogs astounding and says it is clear that he cares about dogs.

Millan heads a foundation that supports shelters and rescue organizations across the country. Long before he was famous, Millan opened a center for abused and rescued dogs in a rough part of South Central Los Angeles. On his program, he's shown taking walks with his pack of rescued dogs down the streets of South Central and in the mountains surrounding the city.

“I have found his respect for the dogs and his love for the dogs is very great,” Deeley says.

Heather Houlahan is another trainer who backs Millan's techniques.

“Demand for private dog training definitely increased in the two years after his show debuted, and many owners contacting me specifically cited Cesar Millan as inspiring them to do something about their dogs’ behavior,” says Houlahan, of Harmony, Pa., who trains search-and-rescue dogs and works with seized dogs.

Millan speaks in language that the average pet owner can understand, and what is particularly important, he shows the public that even a difficult dog can be taught, she says. The public, therefore, gets the message that training, done properly, will produce results.

“Within the bounds of the medium — which is stupid — he shows results and he communicates well,” she says. “He uses plain English, which I believe is very important, and he has very good chops with the dogs. I think the show has basically done good.”

The AVSAB statement annoys Houlahan. She questions the science behind it and says dogs do exhibit dominance behavior and when they do, need to be corrected.

“They are picking on Cesar Millan, but they are also picking on the entire community of results-based trainers,” she says.


Yin and the AVSAB, however, believe Millan’s influence has led to a greater use of punitive training and to a misunderstanding of canine intent. Yin thinks his teachings lead the general public to view all canine misbehavior as dominance aggression, when that is not the case.

The dog who fails to come when called is not exhibiting an intention to establish dominance over the caller. Rather, dominance behavior is “when animals use aggression for scarce resources,” Yin says. She is particularly troubled by Millan’s use of flooding. The technique is brutal, and it is not the way psychologists practice desensitization, she says. Real desensitization involves exposing the subject to the anxiety-producing stimulus in a gradual, controlled manner and is combined with positive reinforcement, she adds.

“Since he has been using those techniques, they have become more popular with the general public,” she says.

Yin wants veterinarians to warn dog owners to avoid any trainer who uses punitive techniques too heavily and advises practitioners to tell their clients to look for three signs that a trainer is too negative:

1. The trainer continually tells owners that they have to be the “alpha.”

2. The trainer warns owners not to use rewards too much. It is not rewards that are the problem but how they sometimes are not used correctly.

3. In a class, more than 10 percent of the dogs are on pinch collars or shock collars. Shock collars should never be used as an initial training device, according to Yin.