Cesar Millan "Showdown" with Holly

[1kumiko]

Put your hand on the fire and say, "I didn't see that coming"
He was evidently provoking the aggressive behavior to kick some action into his show.

Some things about his philosophy make sense, like that we create many unwanted behaviors on our dogs because we fail to provide discipline and excess n affection. It's line raising a kid. 0 discipline and only affection leads to trouble.

However, I don't agree nor like his intimidating methods. He goes too far and gets into abusive side. He makes dogs anxious and it's an irony how he considers that, "a calm dog" when he is obviously super anxious.

I just don't get how or why people keep seeking his help. Just see the owner's faces-- they aren't enjoying what they see and I see it n every show.

[Micah my love]

Most children are taught not to bother a animal or try to take his food when eating

I would not want him in the same room with my babies

[GeorgiesMomma]

Originally Posted by Micah my love

Most children are taught not to bother a animal or try to take his food when eating

I would not want him in the same room with my babies

I completely agree Betty! My son knows not to go around Georgie when he is eating for a couple of reasons. One being I believe Georgie should be given his space to eat and secondly Georgie gets a little feisty. I just don't understand why he gave her the food, said good girl as if to reassure her she could eat then took it away? What did he think would happen? I think he's a little man that can't dominate humans so he does it to dogs JMO

[gemy]

Originally Posted by GeorgiesMomma

I completely agree Betty! My son knows not to go around Georgie when he is eating for a couple of reasons. One being I believe Georgie should be given his space to eat and secondly Georgie gets a little feisty. (1)I just don't understand why he gave her the food, said good girl as if to reassure her she could eat then took it away? What did he think would happen? I think he's a little man that can't dominate humans so he does it to dogs JMO

Awh I have a whole lot to say about this whole video. First we stopped watching CM years ago, and one of our most often comments was gawd - he would not have gotten away doing x/y or z with our big boy Magic. And that would not have been a pleasant encounter for him either.

Now to the video; what comes to my mind immediately is the question; What came before? What was the history of the dog? What did CM try first? Second? or Third? But if this was his first "technique" to try to address food aggression issues, it quite simply was Way Way Overboard!. And I am talking from the time he stood in a challenging frontal position over her while she was eating!.

I will disagree with part of the analysis of the blogspot Brit posted. And ramp forward to when the dog had been laying quietly and CM from a standing position with a soft hand went over her muzzle to pet her. There was as far as I could see no warning in her body language at all. She could have ducked her head away from an unwanted pet; not go for his hand. Now I am only speaking personally but if I a stranger to this dog, had had some severe warnings and snaps and growls when I took the bowl away; I would not have stood over her and tried to pet her, no matter that she had been laying quietly for 1 or 2 minutes.

What would I have done? Quite simply call the dog to me and ask for a sit, reward with a treat from that food bowl, if she had obeyed that command.

I also concur CM was an idiot not to be dressed appropriately for a bite!!!!

And yes that Holly could have hurt him more, as a Lab or Lab mix they were bred to have soft mouths! Not to crunch down on the birds they would be retreiving from water/land.

When I saw that dog go for the hand in the petting situation; no way would I have this dog around toddlers. This dog is NOT SAFE for toddlers.

DID CM aggressively pursue and set up an untenable situation YOU BETCHA! So So un necessary, at least given the history very short that we have seen.

To answer the question (1) - one of the requisites of dogs is that when you say "stop" eating they will let you take the food bowl away. Ideally you work towards not needing to say anything and take it away.

Now in training (what I have been taught) the sequence is. Dog's name you call. you have a high value treat in hand. They lift their head from the food bowl, you say Good BOY immediate reward with that treat. Say go ahead eat your food. You repeat this two or three times for every meal.

SAme scenario, but once the dog lifts its head you reward, and you take the bowl away. The dog is to remain seated. You reward the sit. You can use his actual food in bowl to reward with. This is very powerfull. The dog knows that this is his food bowl, and you the master is feeding him from it.

Then you move onto, as above, then still treating him you place bowl back down, and say WAIT. He waits you reward him. Then you release him to free feed.

As you can see this is motivational mindset; how-ever some dogs do not train well or easily; and btw they are very very few indeed.

I will relate a true life story for Magic my very dominant - not so aggressive big boy. He was not toy or food (regular) food aggressive, but give him a bone a real meaty bone, and watch out!! At about 1yr old and 90 or more pounds hubby tried to take his bone away, Magic was contentedly chewing it in the backyard and hubby wanted to mow the lawn. He growled,then he snarled, then he air snapped. By this time hubby is incensed. Hubby is shouting at him! Magic give it, Magic drop it!
It was by now male testosterone coming up against male testosterone. When I got into the backyard, hubby had Magic's neck noosed up and he was on his hind legs, Magic had his bone in his mouth and wouldn't let go for love nor money. It was an awful racket going on!! I intervened. I said hubby stop this!! Let him go! oNCE done I called Magic to me. He came. Still growling. I said GOOD COME!! DOWN! He went down still with bone in his mouth. I left the situation there. Why? I was not sure how to "safely" proceed. Magic obeyed two commands was out of the way of the lawn mower. I needed to talk with my trainer! Which I did. I DID NOT TRY to repeat two commands Dave was unsuccessful with. I knew enough not to do that!

So then what? Well we set up on our next training day, another "helper". I came with double collars and long leads for Magic. Also two nice fresh meaty bones. He was double collared, and the two leads were hung over tree branches on opposite sides of the tree. If Magic was not willing to exchange one lovely meaty bone for the next, and snarled lunged etc, he would be hung up from that tree. I agreed with trepidation. So I walked forward to him, and his sit/stay reward was one of those juicy bones. We let him chew for a minute or more, all leads loose. I walked away, and got the second bone. Approached Magic, btw face on. With that other juicy bone in hand. I said Magic SIT - he sat!. I said Give it.... He gave it and I immediately placed the fresh bone in his mouth with a BIG GOOD BOY. We worked for about 30 minutes with this; until finally he would just give up his bone for a nice pat and GOOD BOY!. Also he would get the bone back at some point in time.

So we learnt together.

The difficulty is with toddlers and young children, you just can't trust them not to stumble into a food bowl, or want to investigate a food bowl. They are after all just very young children! So the dog has to be trained to be non food aggressive to anyone.









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[gracielove]

I don't know the before of the video but I have the feeling that the dog had some bad encounters with the owners before CM was called in. If a dog is expecting being hit or in some way physically disciplined you have already set yourself up for an ugly encounter.

It appeared to me in the video that CM was way out of line by taking that physically aggressive stance over the dog. He was challenging that dog to a fight. Then he acted surprised that he got one. He was still in an aggressive mode when he followed the dog who had retreated. The dog was anticipating a bad encounter and decided to get in the first lick. Once people have set up a pattern of thinking in a dog's mind that dog is going to anticipate the actions of the person.

Molly did not know this guy who was picking a fight with her in a situation that she was already known to have issues with. She retreated and he followed her and continued to challenge her with his stance. She is standing there wondering what comes next and it appears she decided he wanted a fight. It is sheer ignorance for a person (a stranger at that) to aggressively challenge a dog like that in such a situation.

It's one thing to establish yourself as the leader in the relationship with a dog. It is another thing to do it by being physically dominant. You can't count on physical dominance to train a dog. The relationship has to be based on respect and trust with consistent training methods.

If anything the Dog Whisperer show in general reinforced to me just how clueless most pet owners are about dog training.

[Buster Brown]

Originally Posted by Britster

Oh I don't blame him for kicking the dog while being bit. What else do you do? But it could have all been prevented in the first place!

He's turned into an arrogant showman... I don't see dog training on his show. All he spouts over and over is dominance crap.

I agree with defending himself but I have seen him use that side kick in the ribs just to get a dog's attention and not during an aggressive encounter just when the dog was not obeying his commands.

[Buster Brown]

Originally Posted by QuickSilver

Brit, seriously, my guess is that at this point YOU are a better dog trainer than CM! Have you thought about starting a blog for you and Jackson? Or doing any of the training certs mentioned in your second post?

Oh, also -- that guy who fired me a couple weeks ago has Labs, all of whom are sent to "boot camp" to learn to behave. :roll eyes: Cause you know, Labs are so hard to train. He was bragging how his Lab will Down/Stay forever before getting her food, even to the point where they've forgotten to release her for hours.

so sad

[QuickSilver]

There's another really easy way to treat a food guarder -- just put a little bit of food in the bowl at a time. Then the dog is waiting for you to give them more food, rather than guarding their bowl full of treasure. One simple switch, and the whole dynamic is changed.

[QuickSilver]

Originally Posted by Buster Brown

so sad

I know, right? He said its happened more than once. Seriously? You can't be bothered to release your dog from a command that somebody else taught them?

[katy-yorkie]

Wow! He didn't see that coming? Really? I quit watching Cesar a long time ago. I don't like his "training techniques" at all.

[yorkietalkjilly]

To my mind, he'd been poking at that dog over her food-bowl guarding for quite some time, clearly pushing the dog further & further toward her limit and she no doubt had built up a full store of adrenaline as he stood almost over her in dominance. Though she was showing signs of submission, there were still sure signs of uncertainty in everything about her as she was still processing what had just taken place and still Cesar approached to pet! Unless that dog had gone into full submission, turned away with soft eyes, nudged me gently with her muzzle, rolled onto her back or lowered her hind quarters, wagged her behind at me, done a good bit of liplicking and a good deal more "down time" had passed, I wouldn't have tried to pet that soon after pushing a dog to the limit(which I wouldn't do anyway). Cesar clearly hadn't ended the "session" by saying "release" to the dog, walking away from her or otherwise indicating the session was over, which, clearly in the dog's mind, it wasn't - so she was still in it as far as she was concerned.

To me, when you have had any type of discipline confrontation with a misbehaving dog, if you don't "release" it from the session in some way, they can remain super alert & waiting for more for quite a while. If I have had to discipline a dog, once the discipline and f/u eye contact is done, I release the dog verbally and walk away, allowing the dog out of training/discipline mode and resuming dog mode as soon as he can. Doggie is usually quiet in manner and dealing with what just happened in his mind for a while, checking me out with an occasional glance. He'll sniff the ground, act casual but still you can tell he's left a bit unsure for a time. Then, when the dog has had time to process the session and think about it a while, has started to act himself again, checked me out enough to know I'm done with it all, his tail is back up, etc., I look at him, smile, allow him to come to me and then I pet & love the dog, though a bit reserved still for the remains of the hour.

That's how a mother or alpha dog disciplines - they doesn't discipline with teeth, show teeth & growl or a smack with a firm paw, stand over the underling a while and then immediately kiss or nuzzle it (essentially pet it, as CM tried to do). No. They discipline, stand over or very near with eye contact and then clearly break the session, walking away for a good while, letting the pup or underling process the lesson. Later, they resume normal relationship but only after a good little while and they wait for the underling to come to them with the proper attitude! Cesar did not break away and allow that dog to think, process, relax before he tried affection/touching. And considering the Draconian methods he'd used, the poor girl had a lot to try to process and deal with. To my way of thinking, he spoiled the whole "lesson" by jumping the gun - trying to pet. And I use the term "lesson" advisedly, as all he "taught" Holly that day was to resent him.

[yorkietalkjilly]

P. S. I should add that I agree with gemy that aggressively dominating a resource guarder is no way to treat that behavior problem. Disciplining them while they are guarding over their bowl is not a good way either. I use the savory treat exchange/redirection method also - never try to bully the dog away from the bowl. It just tends to polarize the situation.

[gracielove]

I find his method revolting. He was acting like a bad dog. He got exactly what he was asking for. I don't believe in trying to scare or dominate a dog into submission.

[yorkietalkjilly]

Originally Posted by gracielove

I find his method revolting. He was acting like a bad dog. He got exactly what he was asking for. I don't believe in trying to scare or dominate a dog into submission.

[Verbena]

My question is how did this Lab get this way in the first place? Sad video