cesar millan- opinions please

[booyhoo]

i have recently seen a few episodes of the dog whisperer and am vey taken by how quickly the dogs on the show seem to alter their behaviour. now i am fully aware that it is a tv show and perhaps should be taken with a pinch of salt but im interested to hear if anyone uses the same sort of methods for their own dogs.

I think Barbara Woodhouse the only training school more antiquated and discredtied than pack theory.

Ddog has a tantrum every so often and we can't work out the trigger. (Sometimes he is overtired, he is like a toddler and teenager in one). He runs madly and jumps on furniture. Cesar does a sort of 'onto your side' movement, and dogs lie calmly down. This has yet to work with ddog, who sees it as us joining in with the fun! We are supposed to ignore, according to our trainer...she has seen the video of ddog and was pretty impressed at his athletics. (He is good 99%of the time!)

My dog trainer is an old grizzled Welsh gundog trainer. Sometimes with a gleam in his eye he mutters to me "I'm going to do a Cesar now..." and gazes into my dog's eyes ... cue for dog to go hilariously crazy!

I think the calm assertive thing is spot on, but that's just common sense. The physical stuff ...hmm ... I'm with Bella on that.

And if old Babs had had as much Botox as Cesar, she'd look like this

here

Babs was King (well, Queen) when I was a child, even at 10yo with a badly behaved full grown GSD I could feel that yanking her around on a "check" chain was not going to achieve anything! However Mum believed in her... Now she believes in Ceaser... I think it is a celebrity thing more than a technique thing myself.

Putting dogs on their side (IMHO) is more likely to get someone bitten than get a calm dog. Divert, Ignore, Reward, the dog training holy trinty

I too find him rather attractive

(ducks behind sofa quickly)

It really is the same parenting a child or a dog, if you mean it and give off "I'm in control" signals you can get far.

MIL's 11m Border Collie is nuts with SIL and her 2 badly behaved dogs but with hubby and I he is responsive and MIL can now walk him without him pulling her, that has taken us many weekends to get semi right and i am walking him every evening at the moment and he is doing great.

I have seen Cesar bitten a few times by dogs who also have bitten family and friends so no surprise there.

I also watch Dog Borstal and you have to use the bits you are comfortable with.

I don't have a dog..in fact I loathe dogs..but I find Caesar as cute as a button

i love cesar he is wonderfull, i dint think that he abuses dogs in the slightest, also he doesnt just take on extreme cases at all and i watch it relgiously i would love him to sort my dogs out and i would trust him completly

The putting a dog on its side is an alpha roll, getting the dog to show its belly so its submissive. From what ive seen/read the whole alpha/pack leader thing is now an old fashioned method of training (please correct me if im wrong).

Ceaser has a natural knack with dogs and is very good at reading their body language and correcting them at the right second. I think if it was anyone else trying to put a badly trained/aggressive dog on their back they would be likely to get eaten! Plus with timid or nervous dogs using his techniques would terrify them and could cause all kinds of problems.

I like Victoria Stillwell and ive used some of the trainning techniques from her show (the basic stuff like leave it etc) and its worked really well with my pup. She has a really nice manner with the dogs she works with and isn't afraid to say when training isn't going to work (had a family put there dog down as it was suffering from spaniel rage).

The problem with all these shows is that they make it seem like a dogs behavior can be turned around in a week and it can take months or be ongoing for life. I'd like to see a puppy based show, showing people how to bring their dogs up properly then there would be less problem dogs around!

Attractive wise i find Caesar a bit creepy no idea why though

You are right, spugs, the pack theory dominance methods have been discredited by so much proper scientific research that they are starting to look like the theory that the earth is flat What's more, they can prove very dangerous.