Don't mean to put cat amongst pigeons, but...

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jodieohdoh
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Don't mean to put cat amongst pigeons, but...

Post by jodieohdoh »

I've been reading with interest the posts on this forum which refer to Cesar Millan. I don't mean to stir up a hornet's nest here I promise. The thing is that having watched a number of his shows and read up on the guy, I can't get the sums to add up. I've read a lot on here about his use of "Pain and fear" to control dogs, but I have to say it hasn't come across that way to me.

Having said that I am NOT a dog trainer, I'm the furthest thing from it, I just used my eyes and ears and my brain to draw my conclusions. Would anyone be able to point me in the direction of a video clip of an instance where the pain and fear is apparent? I'm honestly just looking for ways to improve my understanding of my dog and make her happier living with us.

Thanks
emmabeth
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Post by emmabeth »

Ok before I start, please note these are MY personal opinions and not necessarily the opinions of the board owner.

Thats the problem.... it DOESNT look that awful unless you really know your dog body language (and not saying you dont but there are miniscule little signs that are hard to pick up on).

This is why I do feel so strongly about people like CM, who say one thing.... but are in fact doing another.

Have a look at this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXPkSZ7gBTk

Watch this with the sound OFF. That way you are seeing what the dog is saying, not what Cesar is saying.

To me, for a start this dog is not, as the video is described 'naturally aggressive', this dog is showing frustration, he wants out of the cage and I would guess (and thats all i can do because we are not told) that this dog spends a LOT of time in the crate (and note the crate is in the garage, not the house... are this dogs needs being met? Or is he locked in the crate a lot).

He is frustrated and that quite probably has boiled over into growling and snapping, if the owners reacted to his barking by shouting at him, then that would make the situation worse.

Note.... I am interested firstly in WHY this dog behaves the way he does, this is the key to solving it.

In the first few minutes of the video, Cesar spends a lot of time down at the dogs level staring directly into the dogs face. Doesn't look like much but that is an extremely aggressive thing to do to a dog, thats an outright challenge and a threat.

Note how uncomfortable the dog looks, how stressed he becomes. The signs of that stress and discomfort are in his face, the panting, the ears back the turning his head away from Cesar.

Later you see the dog shaking and lifting a paw, this dog is feeling very threatened, if he really WAS a very aggressive dog, backed into a corner (the crate) by someone staring into his face, he would in all likelyhood lunge and bite when CM opens the crate, but he doesnt.. not because CM is handling him right but because hes not a particularly aggressive dog in the first place (in fact hes a very nice dog given the provocation hes had from CM).

When I train a dog, i NEVER want to see a dog stressed out, ears back, shaking, panting, looking away from me. To me that is an unhappy dog who is not in a good mental place to learn anything.

If I was confronted with that dog in exactly the same situation, I would ignore his behaviour in the crate. I would look at him sideways on, not head on, I would never directly stare at him. Id wait until he was quiet and then let him out of the crate, and I would immediately make him aware I had delicious treats and engage his brain doing something.

Cesar doesnt do that, he then stands around with the dog on two leads, and of course the dog doesnt know whats happening, hes still on edge and uncomfy and worried and so he does 'act out' jumping up at the lead etc.

Theres no 'setting the dog up to succeed' here, its all setting him up to lose.

Theres no positive reward, only challenges and threats.

To the 'none doggy behaviour' person, it looks fine, and Cesar is saying all the while about how the dog is submitting to him and is becoming calm.

Thats simply not true, the dog is frightened and upset by him, and the situation around him and is becoming stressed! But you dont see him doing anything 'everyone knows' is cruel, like beating a dog with a stick or launching it across the room with a kick or punch.... so it seems like its ok.

To my mind, it most definately is NOT ok.
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Mattie
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Post by Mattie »

Poor dog Image
[url=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/Nethertumbleweed/PIXIE.jpg][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/Nethertumbleweed/th_PIXIE.jpg[/img][/url]
Owdb1tch
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Post by Owdb1tch »

I've never seen CM (no TV) so I watched that with the sound off. I didn't bother to watch it with the sound on as I'd seen what I wanted to see.

I wonder what the 'problem' was? Looks a really nice dog, good appeasement signals, very respectful, appropriate body language.

Also very lonely and under-stimulated I suspect. Obviously I don't know - but as Emms says, why kept in the garage? And in a very small cage. I wonder if that's where he lives?
katowaggytail
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Post by katowaggytail »

Ditto all that goes before.
I've never seen CM, but the dog looked ok to me. Samyoed's are lively, vocal animals. It seemed, well, ok. I did note, before reading all the replies today ...in a garage.... nice, I really would like to live in/next to my car all day, without seeing anyone etc etc... NOT!. Poor thing's probably bored, frustrated and desperate to be with the "family". Who... probably don't realise all this 'cos the pooch is in the GARAGE!!! :evil:
Aarrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Dibbythedog
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Post by Dibbythedog »

I found this upsetting to watch :(
About the dog lifting his paw.
Brenda Aloff says (from her Canine Body Language book.)
* Paw lifts are used in many different circumstances . If a dog is curious
she will often lift a paw. When a dog is uncertain , she will often lift a
paw. When a dog is stalking or "pointing" she will lift a paw.*

Cotton isn't going after anybody , he's lifting his paw because he's uncertain and anxious.
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Mattie
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Post by Mattie »

I put a post up saying that CM was being aggressive and not the dog and have had several replies, haven't read them all yet but will do and be replying to them as soon as I have the time. :lol:
[url=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/Nethertumbleweed/PIXIE.jpg][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/Nethertumbleweed/th_PIXIE.jpg[/img][/url]
emmabeth
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Post by emmabeth »

Owdb1tch... the blurb describes that as a very aggressive dog.. I havent seen the full episode but ill keep an eye out for it on the idiot-box and see if theres more we arent shown.

One thing I didnt say in my earlier post is how I come to the conclusion that the dog isn't 'aggressive' (and thats not to say he might not have bitten if handled wrongly)... he starts creating a fuss as Cesar moves AWAY, shutting up when C moves back towards him. That tells me he is craving company, even if his verbal language has got a bit out of hand for whatever reason (and that reason is frustration).

Also where he leans over the dog. Now with the sound on he tells us hes not being aggressive to the dog he's dominating it..

But if you watch two dogs doing this where one will put his feet up on the others shoulders, its not a statement 'I am better than you' its a question 'will you object to this, AM I better than you?'..

Theres quite a big difference in the two meanings there I think.
Ocelot0411
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Post by Ocelot0411 »

Now what's really interesting is if you read all of the posts that have been put on YouTube in response to this. What you discover is that you are correct Em that Cotton spends the majority of his life in this crate in the garage and that the owner actually posts on the site trying to give Cotton away as he doesn't have time for him. You also find a disturbing number of sickophants who aren't even prerpared to consider the fact that CM's methods are questionable.

So far I have seen one CM show that I liked and this was the one with the fire station crew and their puppy Wiltshire the Dalmatian. Now the only reason I liked this one was that the fire crew wanted to teach Wiltshire a trick so he could show school children about fire safetly, the trick in question was 'stop, drop and roll', which obvioulsy you would want to do if your clothes caught fire. Now did CM teach Wiltshire this trick? No. He drafted in a trainer who used.........wait for it.........a clicker and positive reinforcement training to teach the trick. Ironic eh?

Now as for the original quetion is CM cruel to dogs, I may get controversial here as personally I don't think he is. Now obviously as with most things in life this boils down to interpretation and also personal opinion, it also of course hinges largely on what you class as cruel. In my view cruelty is knowingly and willingly causing harm or suffering, and I don't think CM is guilty of this. In my view CM's crime is not one of cruelty but arrogance. I believe that he is misguided and incorrectly believes that his methods are correct and humane. I also think that he believes that he is helping. However, as with so many people who become famous and household names, ego then gets in the way until what you end up with is self righteous people impervious to any opinion other than their own and you have in fact created a monster. Now that said, I understand that just because you don't intend harm doesn't mean you don't do it, I just think that ther term 'cruelty' suggests intention to cause such harm.

Surely the issue here is not just CM himself but the fact that some muppet thought it a good idea to put him on TV and therefore give his methods un-deserved credence and also that the public who watch the show are too ignorant / lazy to bother to check out whether or not his methodolgy is actually valid.

So all in all, no I don't like him either or his methods, but I would not go so far as to call him cruel.

I will now go and hide from the barrage of bricks that are likely to come my way after that!!!!!!
Owdb1tch
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Post by Owdb1tch »

Definitely NOT a brick :) but an observation, and again not on CM as I have only seen this one example of his methods.


It is that IMO using psychological battering to train dogs can easily become 'crueller' than the old-fashioned ways (and I am not speaking in favour of thrashing and kicking either). Dogs don't think in the way we do, so if they are psyched-out they have not the coping strategies to handle it.

So - there is more than one way to hurt and bewilder a dog. For instance, I reckon ignoring the dog when it comes to greet you is as powerful in terms of distressing it as a clout or a kick would be. Yet it would not seem as 'cruel' to the average dog owner.

Outmanoeuvring a dog using psychology is not necessarily bad - in fact it can be very effective - but it has the potential to be as damaging as a beating. Just the scars are not visible.
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Mattie
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Post by Mattie »

Being cruel to an animal or human isn't always by intention, you can be cruel through ignorance or in some cases, by thinking you are doing the right thing.

Most of the cases the RSPCA deal with are ignorance yet many are still cruel, the dog that the owners forget to feed and is half starved, they don't intend to hurt the dog but they are being cruel. Many people think they are being kind to their dogs by giving them lots of yummy treats, but in fact, the dogs are so obese that they are being cruel because the dog can't walk or breath properly.

CMs intentions may be good, he is trying to train dogs, but what he did to that dog was cruel, the dog was in quite a state because of the way he was treating it. The dog can't tell CM to back off, if he did then he would probably be pts as being to aggressive to change. Dogs can't win with people like CM, and they can loose their lives because of it.
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Mattie
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Post by Mattie »

Until this week I haven't watched Victoria working with dogs, but the dogs I have seen have been so horendous they have been funny. Especially the dog that opened a drawer to get onto the work surfaces :lol:

If CM had used his tactics on any of these dogs, he would have been attacked but Victoria channelled this to something else and never confronted any of the dogs.
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Ocelot0411
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Post by Ocelot0411 »

Mattie wrote:Being cruel to an animal or human isn't always by intention, you can be cruel through ignorance or in some cases, by thinking you are doing the right thing.

Most of the cases the RSPCA deal with are ignorance yet many are still cruel, the dog that the owners forget to feed and is half starved, they don't intend to hurt the dog but they are being cruel. Many people think they are being kind to their dogs by giving them lots of yummy treats, but in fact, the dogs are so obese that they are being cruel because the dog can't walk or breath properly.

CMs intentions may be good, he is trying to train dogs, but what he did to that dog was cruel, the dog was in quite a state because of the way he was treating it. The dog can't tell CM to back off, if he did then he would probably be pts as being to aggressive to change. Dogs can't win with people like CM, and they can loose their lives because of it.
I couldn't agree more Mattie, you are of course absolutely right. As I said just because you don't mean to do harm doesn't mean that you don' after all 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. All I was trying to get at, which perhaps with hindsight I didn't do very well, is that when people who are fans of CM hear the likes of us criticise him they argue that we say his is cruel to dogs and because you never see him beat or kick them, they argue that he is not. I guess what I was trying to get it as that altohugh CM probably doesn't mean any harm it doesn;t make his methods any better. I also do strongly feel that he had begun to 'believe his own hype' and now ees himself as sime self appointed doggie guru.
emmabeth
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Post by emmabeth »

I think my big objection is two fold.

1/ The problems are 9 times out of 10 misdescribed. Cotton was NOT a massivly dangerously aggressive dog. He was a frustrated dog. Another vid I watched showed Opie a black lab, claimed HE was seriously aggressive as he lunged and barked at dogs passing when he was on lead and got himself into a right state. Again, frustration was the root cause.

This leads people to believe that their dogs behaviour is FAR FAR worse than it really is, and scares them into thinking their dogs are incurable, or only curable via CM's methods.

2/ The things he says. Says a dog is 'calm submissive' when really its shut down and has gone BEYOND terrified into 'learned helplessness'.. We are also lead to believe by the programs hype that these dogs are on their last chance and would HAVE to be PTS if it were not for CM...

And yet Victoria has on her show worked with dogs showing the same types of problem, again under threat of rehoming/pts, and can sort them out without resorting to bullying tactics.

IT all adds up to people becoming terrified of their dogs for no good reason and being LESS likely to correctly identify and solve a problem, and furthers the belief that you must challenge adn confront problem behaviour.
Owdb1tch
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Post by Owdb1tch »

The more I see of so-called 'aggression' the less I believe that true aggression exists in the majority of dogs. As you say, there is massive frustration; I also see fear, but very very rarely - aggression.
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