The Fall of Cesar Milan

[minimuu]

At last the message is getting through

link here

I think Cesar's methods are nonsense. We tried them on our terrier who is just a submissive dog who likes to play with dogs and doesn't like or need to be told off.

We tried the "tsshh" and he pissed himself with fear. Our dog does everything we want - ie recall, sit, lay down, No - just cost he likes us.

Ah.... the "psssssht" thing.

Every dog I know, who I've tried that on, either completely ignores it or looks mildly interested... "Wassat noise you're making there?"

The reason that the dogs in The Dog Wrestler's show find that sound so aversive is that he's PAIRED it with an aversive before the cameras start to roll. I'd bet that mostly, he pairs it with a zap from an E-Collar, but I suppose he might use one of his pokes or kicks. Either way, to the dogs, that sound means "Something Nasty This Way Comes".

whatI think it depends on the dog breed and nature. Ours is a very stubborn girl. When we first got her we took her to the vet and immediately the vet recognized that she was headstrong and said we would need to be very firm.

Also, our dog is not very food driven. She will happily say no to a treat and instead do whatever it was she wanted to do in the first place. Unlike most labs who are very food driven and fixated on the morsel in your hand.

Flatbread my dog is not driven by food but she is by her ball or soft toy. Have you tried anything like that. There is a big difference between being firm and hurting a dog to get it to behave. A firm out from me and the dog will leave the room and lay down in the kitchen, I would never hurt her.

Ah yes. Vets who dish out (usually wrong) training/behavioural advice. Most of them don't have a clue and should stick to medical matters.

With dogs who aren't particularly food driven, you need to find what DOES float their boat. It could be toys. It could be attention. It could be the opportunity to do "what she wanted to do in the first place".

That said, ALL dogs are food driven. If they weren't, they'd die. Granted, some dogs will work for a piece of plain kibble and some won't - but often it's a case of finding THE best food treat. Something a bit special. Also, it makes sense to make sure the dog is hungry; there's no point trying to train a full dog with treats if that treat isn't very exciting. It's not a case of starving your dog - it's more a case of timing training sessions to maximise your chances.

Eventually, treats/toy rewards/whatever will be phased out anyway - or at least fade to a variable rate of reward - and once a behaviour is truly conditioned, the dog will comply anyway, without thinking, just because the behaviour IS conditioned.

Just watched the youTube clib of Cesar kicking the dogs. Unbelievably awful.

I'm always at a bit of a loss on these threads why some folk defend his techniques so passionately and seem to be so anti positive reinforcement. Even if you ignore the list of organisations that minimu listed that are critical of his methods, and the behavioural reasoning as to why positive reiforcement works so effectively I still can't get my head round why folk would choose to use punishment based methods.

Purely anecdotally I know what happens to my dog when I get out the clicker. Ears prick up, tail wagging, eyes totally focused on me. She is desperate to do whatever it is that I want to make that clicker click. She adores training, I love it too, so much fun and I feel very calm and happy after our sessions. I never need to get cross or dominate or become aggressive. And the speed with which she learns is phenomenal.
It's win-win-win.
I get the behaviour I want. She adores the learning experience. I enjoy the learning experience.
Can't really understand why anyone would do it any other way tbh.

Oh and flatbread I am lucky that I have a dog that is motivated by food, however she is much much more motivated by balls (retrieval thereof) so in outdoor training situations where she is much more likely to be distracted by other things I will use a ball as the 'treat' following a click. Win win again as running after a ball keeps her fit and burns off lots of energy.

Ponders dogs were domesticated from Wolves, yes but I think the point Minimu is making is that Wolves still exist, not all of them became domesticated. Like all species they each have personalities of their own. The wolves who wanted to work with humans to gain 'treats' became the domestic dog we know today. Those who preferred to work as a pack and stay away from us, stayed the wolf we know today. Thus her point still stands. The dogs/wolves our pets were bred from many, many years ago learnt via positive training methods and chose to work with us for rewards. I'd rather my dog work with me because he wants to than because he fears me.

New studies have also shown that years of domestication have changed the dog and it's behaviour so far from it's wolf counter part that even feral dogs do not behave the way wolves do.

The research on dominance training was also flawed right from start. It was based on packs of captive wolves. Newer studies have revealed that captive wolves behave very differently to wild wolves and many of the aversive training methods e.g pinning the dog down by it's neck or causing pain, that are used during dominance training are not what the wolves would use to teach young, rather they are only ever used in life and death situations.

I'm sure I've missed loads out, but a little Googling will help explain what I mean.

Applying common sense works too. For example my dog wants to get through the door before me, not to teach me he is boss, just because he thinks his walk will start quicker. He is 'trained' to pull me through the door because he is rewarded for doing so. He pulls, his gets out of the door. Thus in his mind he has been rewarded for pulling and will repeat or he pulls, we don't move. The reward has been taken away. He stops pulling and walks calmly, he gets out of the door. He has been rewarded for being calm. He repeats the behaviour.

calamity our vet is actually great. She is empathetic and loves animals. My dog desperately wanted to please her from the first moment they met! Truly, she is a superb vet and amazingly attuned to animals:)

I get the positive reinforcement thing, and we do it will food to an extent, but definitely balls and touchies which she adores. But punishments also have their place. Now that she is old enough, she knows that if she does something she is not supposed to do, there are consequences.

For example, when she was little she stole food off the table, and she knew she was in the wrong and hid under the table when she saw me coming. I smacked her. She knew she was in my very bad book. Now, I can leave butter (her favourite food) on the side table, within sniffing and licking distance and she will not eat it. Very useful, as I like to have crackers and butter and do leave these lying around:)

She is never physical hurt by what I do, a smack on the bum doesn't actually physically hurt her as she plays rougher than that with her dog friends. But it hurts her to know that I am unhappy with her. And whether it is a firm no or a bad girl or a smack mean the same thing for the dog. I just think as humans we are over thinking this.

The whole dominance thing seems utterly illogical to me.

See, I do not like 'the naughty step'. I do use 'time out' in that the natural consequence for rudeness, fighting etc for my kids is that I decide they must be over tired/stressed, and give them some time on their own in their room or elsewhere to calm down/reflect on their behaviour. But I don't call it the naughty step, and therein lies a subtle difference - its not punitive, but it is a consequence.

So it does make sense to me to do the same kind of thing with my dog: wild behaviour = removal of good thing and/or wild-making stimulus. Good behaviour = treats and time with me

I'm far from perfect - have lost it and shouted/threatened 'no playdate' etc etc with kids in times of stress. Ditto when frustrated with pup. Not proud of any of those times, but the main thing is....they are not my norm, and definitely not a conscious choice.

Whether or not the smack actually hurts is neither here nor there, really. If it worked as an aversive (and that's debatable, since if she'd had time to hide under the table she probably didn't associate the smack with stealing the food anyway) then she found it unpleasant.

The issue isn't really that aversives work - of course they do. Life is full of them. A dog sniffs a hedgehog and gets a prickled nose and learns not to sniff hogs anymore. Examples are endless.

The issue is that using them in dog training is not particularly humane - especially when kinder methods work just as well, if not better.

Flatbread..you don't need to hit her! A firm No ! in an assertive voice would have exactly the same effect :(

Slubber - great post.

I don't get it either - this Cesar worship. I can't see how people can see him using a shock collar, and kicking dogs, and STILL stick up for him. I can't see how people are so taken in by him calling a kick a "heel touch" FFS.

If I came to your house and kicked you in the ribs I highly doubt that if I later explained to the Police that it wasn't a kick but a heel touch they'd go "Oh right! Didn't realise! Soz!"

As for clicker training - completely agree. My older dog - she was 7 when I got her - is fairly sedate these days but still goes NUTS when the clicker comes out. They both do. They hop around at my feet, doing that sort of tapdance thing... "Is it me? Is it me?"

The thing is parents bring up their children in different ways, and we accept that there are many ways to train children.

So why get huffy about different ways to train dogs! Carrots and sticks, both in moderation, I say. And for ffs, live and let live. I am sure your dog is happy and so is mine. So why such a fuss over training methods?

Perhaps Mr Milan will take the opportunity to educate himself and learn which of his methods are appropriate and which ones aren't. I do not agree that actions should always be without consequences. You cannot forever ignore the hegative and praise the positive. It is very interesting that people say Cesar Milan's ideas are outdated. What then of the people who domesticated dogs in the first place? Even all the treat-based training will have consequences. Before long it too will be seen as old fashioned. Are we any closer to understanding the languages of other living things, or do we just live in current theory?

Because you hit your dog !

See, a lot of this just seems like common sense to me. You big up the desired behaviour, and correct the bad. By correct in my case I mean either a firm 'No' or hand clap to get his attention, then showing the desired behaviour and heaping on the praise. Yes I use food in training, but it's nonsense to think you have to carry treats with you everywhere for the rest of the dogs life. I no longer treat for sit, or lay down, apart from a 'good boy' and an ear scratch. He seems to quite enjoy that. But if we're learning something new, I break out the cheese. Basically, if your dog likes you, and wants to spend time with you, they seem to enjoy pleasing you. I don't see how a dog would enjoy your company if you sometimes hurt it.

top that was my point exactly, a firm no and a smack mean the same thing to my dog. She does not see a smack as painful, she sees my displeasure as painful. And actually, when she is worked up, a physical contact, e.g., smack works better than words. This is how her doggie mom trained her and she finds it easier too, and in some ways, more reassuring.

The whole no smack thing is a human construct meant for human kids, not dogs. Dogs are very physical and a smack is just a non-verbal no. It is no worse and sometimes better and creates less noise. So now, I don't even need to smack or say no, just slight raise two fingers of my right hand and she gets it. So much easier all around than too much talk and nagging.

Why not, if it works?

There's a lot of misunderstanding about the "ignoring" thing, anyway.

Some behaviours are self-rewarding. Barking, for instance. Dogs like doing it. If your dog barks a lot, ignoring it isn't likely to stop the barking.

But for behaviours where ignoring means NO reward for the dog, ignoring (along with ideally teaching an alternative, imcompatible behaviour) WILL work.

Plus she loves to hang out and is not scared of my hand or anything. I feed her, scratch her, groom her and she licks my hand lovingly during our cuddle sessions.

She finds a smack reassuring???

How did her "doggie mom" smack her, exactly?

Of course actions shouldn't always be without consequences

But there are consequences and consequences. 'No treat' or 'no attention' is a consequence.

I do agree though that Mr Milan should educate himself, or (you may guess my background here ) get himself some therapy. Because he's certainly not all bad, and he's done some very good things - but some of his beliefs and behaviours are definitely off.

Dogs actually communicate mainly via non physical body language, barking and growling. They bite in play, yes. But not so as to cause pain, shock or discomfort. 'Doggy mummies' rarely bite their pups to cause distress.

Basically,we should not use weapons to beat up our animals and expect them to behave. A rider using spurs on their horse should not be wearing them in order to stab the animal in the sides,and should not use a whip to cause pain. This is not to say that people don't do this because they do. Any tools we make can be very destructive. Must go out with the dogs...

I would also like to know how a doggie mom smacks her pup.
Also a smack is NOT the same thing as a No...a smack is hurting her regardless of what you say..a smack hurts.