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Originally Posted by QuickSilver  Okay, so I watched the bulldog episode on Hulu. Here are my thoughts:
* It was good to see that Cesar recognized that she was getting more keyed up by the prong collar, and he switched her to a gentle leader.
* He gave some good explanation of her body language in the beginning.
* The vibration collar seemed harmless.
* This really bugged me: Bella was billed as this hyper-aggressive dog on the verge of being PTS, but she really was not all that aggressive! She had food guarding issues, which tons of dogs do, and she was dog-aggressive, again, which tons of dogs are. The owner admitted that he had never worked with a trainer. She had not been given a stable home, so of course she had some issues. The real problem here was completely clueless people.
* Cesar provoked her unnecessarily by hitting her, kicking her, staring at her, etc. It's a self-feeding cycle: Cesar claims the dog is aggressive,and behaves aggressively towards the dog. The dog either submits, and it's a win for Cesar. OR, the dog gets aggressive, and it's used as proof that oooooh, this is a scary, crazy dog. The real hero in this episode was Bella, who endured the shenanigans of her owner, and then of Cesar with typical canine flexibility and grace.
* The techniques Cesar used to reduce food guarding are fine (though again, no hitting, please!), but I can imagine Victoria Stilwell working with Bella and getting great results with far less drama. Which is perhaps why she is less popular.
* Overall, it was a mishmash of good and bad training, and it's hard to sort out. I think Cesar is an okay trainer, but I just don't get why he is a household name when there are much better, more educated trainers out there using more modern, more gentle, and more effective techniques. That really bugs me. |
I have never seen Cesar kick a dog. I've seen him bump them with his foot, is that what you call kicking? I use my foot to block my dogs all the time. They do not fear my foot, nor do they cowar when I lift my foot but they do back away, if they don't the get pushed back with my foot.
He is a household word because before Cesar, there was no one. I watchn Victoria as well, but believe that she uses way too much bribing and rewarding with treats.
Cesar uses one correction for all behavior. Chhhht and a poke. It just means stop what you are doing. Victoria has a different remedy for each misbehavior. Dogs do not need language and bribes and rewards, they just need to know if they did good or bad.
Neither method is good or bad, just preference.