Cesar Millan coming to Toronto

Oh Joy. Oh zippity do dah. He's coming November 1st to preach to us how to do it Cesar's way. It's unbelievable how excited people are about this. And frightening. Makes me feel like I'm spitting into the wind.

I'll have to remember to use plastique so the metal detectors don't go off......

We have tons of salmonella filled eggs here in the US. Would you like me to send them your way to throw at him? I hate when people worship him or even mention his name to me regarding how great his methods are. Ugh!!

protest time!

Somebody gave me a ticket to see him in DC several years ago, before I had ever even heard of him. I couldn't believe the awful way he talked about training dogs...and the audience was practically orgasmic. On top of being so mean spirited about training, he's also a sexist jerk to his wife, who is an assistant at the live show. He makes all sorts of wink-wink-slurp-scratch boy's room jokes at his wife's expense. I found him repulsive. After the live presentation, I watched the TV show a few times, which totally confirmed my initial impression of him.

Here are links to quite good articles, IMHO, that talk specifically about his techniques--the good and the bad. Worth reading:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Cesar-Milan-Dog-Training-the-Dog-Whisperer

http://bestdogtraininghere.com/cesar-millan-the-dog-whisperer-pros-and-cons/

Finally an article on why Millan is so often criticized by other trainers and behaviourists:

http://www.dogtrainingtoys.com/dog-psychology/cesar-millan-dog-whisperer-faces-criticism


Micheal, it doesn't surprise me a bit that he's a jerk to his wife. I have found alot of the Alpha Male trainers are that way. Those guys get caught up in their own dominance rhetoric. No wonder she's divorcing him.

Can we sick the G20 Summit police/swat on him? I would pay to watch them beat him to a pulp.

They can also beat up Brad Pattison while they're at it...

Disgusting excuses for men let alone dog trainers!

Millie'sMichael wrote:he's also a sexist jerk to his wife, who is an assistant at the live show. He makes all sorts of wink-wink-slurp-scratch boy's room jokes at his wife's expense.

Well no wonder she's divorcing him! I always joked that he alpha rolled her and tsssst jabbed her one too many times lol!

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20391564,00.html

MandyPug wrote:

Millie'sMichael wrote:he's also a sexist jerk to his wife, who is an assistant at the live show. He makes all sorts of wink-wink-slurp-scratch boy's room jokes at his wife's expense.

Well no wonder she's divorcing him! I always joked that he alpha rolled her and tsssst jabbed her one too many times lol!

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20391564,00.html

I HATE the alpha roll There are dogs that completely shut down when they have that done to them. I was told by a stupid male aquaintance of hubby's that my girl Clara must have been alpha rolled a couple of times because of how well behaved she is and also because she's a pit type dog(Am bully/Am. Staff mix) and you have to be tough with them. If I would have had tableware with me,I would have neutered the dumbass with a teaspoon

Good luck Blanche! Let us know if we need to raise bail money for you

Trish

MandyPug wrote:Can we sick the G20 Summit police/swat on him? I would pay to watch them beat him to a pulp.

They can also beat up Brad Pattison while they're at it...

Disgusting excuses for men let alone dog trainers!

Amen, sista!

Once you Canadian lasses do the deed, I can provide refuge far away from the RCMP goons. I think Michael has a spare bed too, but he's not far enough away.

And yes Blanche, plastique is a must.

Hey Blanche, psssst, psssst, poke, poke. Gawd, how many times I heard people make that noise in my class at their dog.

There was some guy that came in with his 'pit' all the time and he spat at it with that noise and was offdownsitoffsitdowndownstayoffistetc and the poor dog had this "why me" look on its face.

When someone would start on the "well this is what it says on the Dog Whisperer" I'd tell them to remember that it's a TV show. You don't see his failures. I do.

So many things that he does are scientifically wrong, like flooding and he uses shock collars, I had a client that drove all the way to LA and the dog was worse after the visit. He had my client meet him at the dog park (this dog had been used as a bait dog for dog fighting) and when the dog flipped out, he took the dog and put a shock collar on it.

It's hard to keep calm about the whole CM thing, I think he needs to be alpha rolled by a bunch of PO'd women.

The one point i make to a lot of people i come across is that none of these fad trainers have dogs competing or titled in anything.

Agility, Flyball, Rally, Obedience, or Freestyle... None of them can train a dog to do anything that requires motivation and skill. All they can do is bully a dog to sit, try bullying a dog into running an agility course... You'll never Q let alone earn a title.

As usual, I have a differing opinion, guess that is what makes the world go round.

4 yrs ago, I phoned an SPCA several hundred miles away re a pug they had advertised for adoption. Having 5 already at that time, I didn't particularly need another pug, but wanted to make sure no pug went without a forever home. The SPCA said they had several appplications already, and I was relieved, as we generally took only pugs with no other options left.

2 wks later, a call from the SPCA, would I please take this pug, he had been adopted out 4 times, and brought back within 48 hrs each time. I went and got him the next day.

Now I am the first to say that though I love pugs, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a professional or even competent trainer. But this guy, was named Brutus for good reason. He attacked my other pugs, esp the ones in carts. He peed on any dog lying and sleeping, he was a terror. He drove us all crazy, and I certainly empathized with the other attempted owners.

Something had to be done. I tried everything I ever knew, to no avail. I was this dogs last chance, and let me tell you that positive reinforcement only works when there is something positive to reward. Anyway, as a last desperate measure, I tried the Alpha dog trick. Put him down on his side, with great difficulty I might add. Let the one he had attacked come and sniff him, and wonder of wonders, he submitted. Over the next 3 wks I had to do this 3 more times, and that was it! In 4 yrs I have never had to do more than yell occasionally. He will lay in front of my paraplegics and play laying down. Since that first time he has never bowled one over, or tried to hurt one.

So for me, it worked! Cesar saved Brutus, and though I dont advocate it for most dogs, on some occasions it is neccessary and it can work.
Personally I dont care about Cesar's relationship with his wife, just as I dont care about Tiger Woods marriage. Not my business. But if we can take anything from someones philosophy, adapt it to meet our own situation, and help/save a pug then great as far as I am concerned.

JMO Joan still owned by Faith, Samson, Solomon, Louie, Casper, Sarah, Bella, BRUTUS & Peanut

BTW the method did not work with Peanut, and I have the scars to prove it!!! LOL

PUGSMUM wrote:and let me tell you that positive reinforcement only works when there is something positive to reward.

Not true at all. There is always something positive to reward. The times when he's restrained and not over his threshold is when he would've been reward-able. When working with dogs that react to a stimulus (ie. other dogs) you must find their threshold and counter condition them very slowly

Positive reinforcement also uses negative punishment. Negative punishment is removing something the dog likes, whereas positive punishment adds something the dog dislikes. Attacking another dog is self rewarding, adrenaline is released and the dog feels good, what you did was positive punishment by adding something the dog dislikes to deter it (which creates a fearful response of the dog thinking "oh shit i can't do that or i'll get pinned on the ground") in this instance you can see the dog is the "what the dog likes" and the pinning is "what the dog doesn't like". Using negative punishment in this situation the typical plan of action would be having the dog restrained (ie. leashed) and watching the body language of the dog. One would start far away and slowly move closer always watching the body language, any signs of stress, anxiety, tensing at all take a step back or removing the other dog. When the dog relaxes you reward. Slowly over several short sessions one would move closer and closer to the stimulus rewarding when the dog was relaxed and doing what you wanted them to do. This is showing the dog that the other dogs are okay to be around and that when he's chilled out around them, good things happen.

Positive reinforcement takes a long time which is why people turn to the negative reinforcement and positive punishment, it's a quick fix (though very seldom a permanent fix). It's teaching the dog what to do, not teaching them what not to do. This is why there is so much confusion and chaos in dog training these days. People are more focused on yelling "no no no! don't do that sparky, shut up! stop that!" than teaching the dog what they're supposed to be doing. In Negative Reinforcement, the dog has to use trial and error. It's like they're gambling, do something and it might be right but there's the equal chance that it's wrong and they'll get punished. Eventually this becomes too overwhelming and they shut down completely, refusing to do anything or express any emotion in fear that it will lead to punishment.

Ian Dunbar said it best (paraphrasing here): People are so focused on making up rules for their dogs, unrealistic human rules. Though here's the thing, they don't tell the dog these rules. So when the dog breaks these imaginary rules they they never knew were there, bad things happen and they have no idea why. They were just doing what they thought to be right.

Here's my take on dog training. Both methods work. I spent several years training guide dogs for a prison program and they use choke collars and traditional correction-based training. I've seen well trained dogs using both positive training and traditional training and I've seen horribly trained dogs using both methods.

The thing I like about reward-based training is there's more room for trainer error and is why I cringe thinking about correction-based methods used by someone who gets their training tips off TV or reading Monks of New Skete or some such other thing. The training biggies are duration, distraction and distance and when delivering the reward/correction your timing is important, but much more important when using corrections, ideally, your reward/correction should come within a few seconds at the most from the behavior. You must also be consistent. Training is another word for delivering information and people that deliver the information most effectively have the best trained dogs. People that also pay attention to the information their dog is trying to convey to them are also going to reach their goal faster. Your dog is not yawning because he's bored, he's yawning because he's stressed.

I do think that positive training is much more forgiving of trainer errors, if you use corrections, you better know what you're doing or you'll really stress the dog out. If you screw up delivering treats, the dog will still love training and he's not going to shut down from stress.

This is my analogy about positive training. If you're lost and I'm giving you directions, it will help you get there faster if I tell you where to go instead of where to not go. Correction-based training is very human-centric and not very helpful for delivering information in a way the dog understands. But God love dogs, they get it anyway!

PUGSMUM wrote:As usual, I have a differing opinion, guess that is what makes the world go round.

4 yrs ago, I phoned an SPCA several hundred miles away re a pug they had advertised for adoption. Having 5 already at that time, I didn't particularly need another pug, but wanted to make sure no pug went without a forever home. The SPCA said they had several appplications already, and I was relieved, as we generally took only pugs with no other options left.

2 wks later, a call from the SPCA, would I please take this pug, he had been adopted out 4 times, and brought back within 48 hrs each time. I went and got him the next day.

Now I am the first to say that though I love pugs, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a professional or even competent trainer. But this guy, was named Brutus for good reason. He attacked my other pugs, esp the ones in carts. He peed on any dog lying and sleeping, he was a terror. He drove us all crazy, and I certainly empathized with the other attempted owners.

Something had to be done. I tried everything I ever knew, to no avail. I was this dogs last chance, and let me tell you that positive reinforcement only works when there is something positive to reward. Anyway, as a last desperate measure, I tried the Alpha dog trick. Put him down on his side, with great difficulty I might add. Let the one he had attacked come and sniff him, and wonder of wonders, he submitted. Over the next 3 wks I had to do this 3 more times, and that was it! In 4 yrs I have never had to do more than yell occasionally. He will lay in front of my paraplegics and play laying down. Since that first time he has never bowled one over, or tried to hurt one.

So for me, it worked! Cesar saved Brutus, and though I dont advocate it for most dogs, on some occasions it is neccessary and it can work.
Personally I dont care about Cesar's relationship with his wife, just as I dont care about Tiger Woods marriage. Not my business. But if we can take anything from someones philosophy, adapt it to meet our own situation, and help/save a pug then great as far as I am concerned.

JMO Joan still owned by Faith, Samson, Solomon, Louie, Casper, Sarah, Bella, BRUTUS & Peanut

BTW the method did not work with Peanut, and I have the scars to prove it!!! LOL

Joan:
Here's one of my primary concerns about TV/Celebrity dog trainers--people watch them and believe that they can "fix" their dog in an hour or less. Positive, negative--it doesn't matter, you can't "fix" it in an hour. As you know training takes time, it takes patience, it takes commitment and IT TAKES THOUGHT. If you don't know how a dog learns or processes then you can't really train them effectively and most dogs are hard to train in an hour--and for most dogs an hour is too long for any kind of training session.
And I hear poeple talking about how they've used Cesar's methods and it worked. "Now every time my dog barks I snap his leash tight and he stops". Well, then it hasn't actually worked. The dog hasn't stopped barking--you are just applying a harsh correction consistently, but the behaviour hasn't changed.
And I believe he DOES have some things right--dogs do need exercise, they need to have a sense of leadership--but I believe that one can be a leader without having to be the distributor of pain or fear.
I don't see alot of positives in his shows or in his books. And all of his training is based on outmoded wolf research--even the original researcher--Mech--has acknowledged that he got it wrong. And the whole "red zone" dog categorization isn't new. Many shelters have used that system for years.
"If it hadn't been for Cesar,t hen my dog would have been euthanized". Maybe. Or maybe the dog would have been euthanized because you didn't want to take the time it really takes to work with this dog. I mostly see that with "red zone" dogs. People don't want to take the time, or spend the money to get decent advice and assessments on dogs with potentially aggressive issues.

And here's where I become unpopular. We get the occasional aggressive dog surrendered to us--or attempted to surrender to us--often Puggles. They already have a bite record. I won't take a dog with a bite record. They won't get adopted. They just won't. Now I do assess what the owner means by a bite--as we get alot of owners who think their pug is aggressive because he or she snapped at the 2 year old when the kid fell on the dog while it was sleeping. That isn't aggression. But if your dog has bitten your kids, then had a go at you when you tried to move the kids away and has also bitten the neighbours, the pizza delivery guy etc, my rescue won't take the dog. It's a lawsuit waiting to happen if the dog does get adopted and mostly, they won't get adopted and will sit in foster care as a management nightmare for some foster parent. I will euthanize a dedicated biter. I've lived with a biter, I know exactly what it takes to manage one and most people won't do what is required.

One of my favourite trainers and behaviourists is Joan Weston. She runs a company called Fangs but No Fangs. She is an aggression specialist and she never advocates rolling or pinning a dog. For a ton of reasons--some having to do with the health and safety of the dog and some having to do with the health and safety of the handler. Alpha rolling is a VERY dangerous thing to do and puts your arms, face and abdomen in the bite range of most dogs. And dogs DON'T alpha roll each other--neither do wolves. If you see a dog in a submissive position--on it's back, belly up--then the dog put him or herself there as a sign of submission. In adult dogs, a dog that has another dog pinned down on it's back and isn't play wrestling is a bad situation. You're about to see a bad thing happen. I won't let the "pinned on their back" happen even in play with adult dogs--I stop it immediately.

People will use what they want to use when they train their dogs--I just wish people understood that they can't really learn dog training from a TV show and that what they see if often only a piece of what's going on and only the piece that is "good TV".

I suppose that everyone trains their dog their own way. But I do like the thought that Milan advocates walking and walking and walking. Alpha rolling, no need here. But I wonder if alpha rolling, given a dog's anatomy makes lung function difficult or physically alters the heart's pumping mechanism inducing a quasi-coma state like turning a shark over on its back and having it 'go to sleep.'

We're Here wrote:I suppose that everyone trains their dog their own way. But I do like the thought that Milan advocates walking and walking and walking.

Most trainers out there advocate exercise, positive trainers or not.

We're Here wrote:Alpha rolling, no need here. But I wonder if alpha rolling, given a
dog's anatomy makes lung function difficult or physically alters the
heart's pumping mechanism inducing a quasi-coma state like turning a
shark over on its back and having it 'go to sleep.'

That is a possibility Ellen, though not really the same as a shark "going to sleep". The thing is people see how he does it on tv, they're not there hands on they're seeing it through a screen. The viewer doesn't see how hard he rolls these dogs, so they'll often slam the dog down. This can create a winded type feeling and surprise the dog. Not to mention that the dog fights back forcing the one rolling the dog to exert more pressure. This isn't a natural position for dogs to be in and depending on the force that has to be applied it can be dangerous and cause injury to both handler and dog.

I am certianly not advocating using any one method on every dog. Just stating that the "alpha roll" worked in this particular case, and it worked quickly. I cannot have a new resuce attacking and injuring any of my handicaps, and I abhore pens and crates. So it did not hurt Brutus, I think it did surprise him, and it worked. Been nearly 4 yrs, and never had to do it agian. Maybe lots of other things could have worked, , who knows. Just dont think we should comdemn every aspect of Cesars training.

I have only watched him a few times, but it seems that he mostly works with larger more dangerously aggressive breeds, and safety is a consideration. The trouble is with osme ot these rescues, you dont know why, and probalby never will, they are the way they are. Brutus is the only pug I have ever used this method, but I dont think laying a dog on its side while another pug comes and sniffs it, is particularly inhumane.
JMO of course, but I am sure Brutus preferred it to being penned up for months, and my others were safe and secure which is of utmost importance.

Blanche I completely empathize with your policy on biting dogs, but here i am not getting them ready to be fostered or adopted, I keep them for good. So I only have to worry about the safety of my other pugs, not lawsuits etc. And dont worry everyone, these pugs get as much love and attention and cuddling as they can handle. They are my life.

Joan

I think that with any TV programme the danger is that people see "amazing results" in what appears to be a very short space of time, as has already been pointed out, and then the dumb fools think that is what they should do. That goes for all training programmes and trainers, Stilwell as well as Milan.

None of the ones I have seen place nearly enough emphasis on just how much hard work it can be to train a dog. And let's not forget that the TV programmes (or at least the episodes I have seen) concentrate on dogs that already have a problem.

Whilst I am in favour of positive, reward-based training 99% of the time, I think negative does have a place. Not in terms of shock collars or anything ghastly like that. But if my dog starts to rush into the middle of a busy street to chase a car then he is going to get a very firm yank back (out of harm's way) and a scold, in the same way a toddler would. Yes, I am then going to follow up with asking him to watch me, reward, and on we go with our walk all happy again.

Training a pup from scratch has got to be hugely different from training a damaged dog and I think different training approaches are needed.

MandyPug wrote:The one point i make to a lot of people i come across is that none of these fad trainers have dogs competing or titled in anything.

Agility, Flyball, Rally, Obedience, or Freestyle... None of them can train a dog to do anything that requires motivation and skill. All they can do is bully a dog to sit, try bullying a dog into running an agility course... You'll never Q let alone earn a title.

Really really really good point! I dislike him intensely, too. And the fact he's never had any dog in public competition says a lot for his training methods. I also feel that he doesn't consider his dogs to be companions (to have around, play with and enjoy), just property.

Shit he's coming to my province too...

Tour dates

• October 26 at Save On Foods Memorial Centre, Victoria
  
• October 27 at River Rock Show Theatre, Vancouver
  
• October 28 at Red Robinson Show Theatre, Vancouver
  
• October 30 at Copps Coliseum, Hamilton
  
• November 1 at Air Canada Centre, Toronto
  
• November 2 at John Labatt Centre, London
  
• November 3 at Scotiabank Place, Ottawa
  
• November 4 at Bell Centre, Montreal
  
• November 6 at Rexall Place, Edmonton
  
• November 7 at Pengrowth Saddledome, Calgary
  

If on November 8th you see in the headlines "Cesar Milan dead,
Lethbridge girl convicted of manslaughter" and then don't see me on the
forums... Do the math. My dislike for him burns like the fire of 1000
suns. Guh.

MandyPug wrote:If on November 8th you see in the headlines "Cesar Milan dead,
Lethbridge girl convicted of manslaughter" and then don't see me on the
forums... Do the math. My dislike for him burns like the fire of 1000
suns. Guh.

How could that happen? You will be in Nevada, right here with me and Penny, the whole time that moron is in Canada! With that strong an alibi, you will never be convicted.

Couldn't you make that October 25th instead of November 8?

pugpillow wrote:Couldn't you make that October 25th instead of November 8?

Perhaps that could be arranged...I say you and Blanche come with lol!