Cesar Millan: his dog, and his critics - Kc dog blog | Dog Time - Dog Blog Network

this blogger alternates between claiming to understand the objections to the Dog-Whisperer techniques and tools,
and then revealing that actually s/he does not understand the behavior-science objections to harsh handling,
nor the reward-based trainers actual training process - for one thing, referring repeatedly to purely positive -
which is a myth, no-one and nothing can be all rewards, all the time.
there are no purely-positive training techniques;
ignoring unwanted (but not dangerous, aggro, etc) behavior into extinction, is NOT positive in the sense of happy -
as we have taken away the reward. similarly, management to prevent Self-Rewarding behaviors - like escaping
from the yard - is not a happy / positive thing for the dog, who is now frustrated in their attempts to escape.

sloppy use of the word POSITIVE in this article makes it very easy to be confused -
if i use the term *positive* as defined in behavioral-science to mean ADDING, and by purely-positive i refer to
positive punishment AKA applied-punishment, i am right back in the 1930s + 1940s punishment-training mind-set,
where i drag the dog along with me on a choke-chain, going where i please, jerk the dog back if they forge,
and jerk the dog forward if they lag... BUT its purely positive - Positive Punishment.
lets parse that sentence fragment -
...seldom (do) I see him do() anything that could be misconstrued as actual cruelty - it cannot be mis-understood as cruel? i do not think that was what s/he meant to say...
all pos-R trainers only train puppies? really?
plenty of pos-R trainers across the USA and around the world, specialize in aggressive dogs, and use none
of the trademark-Millan tools or methods in their B-Mod process; no choke collars or slip-leads to shut-off the airway,
no prongs to punish, no Alpha-rolls, no pinning a struggling dog... no shock-collars, no scat-mats, no jerking leads.
just ONCE i would like to see a roll-call of every dog shown on the TV-program,
and whether the owner was actually ADVISED * BY * A * REPUTABLE* PROFESSIONAL - a vet, a credentialed trainer,
a vet-behaviorist - not by their next-door neighbor or the security-guard who holds the leash of a perimeter-patrol dog -
to euthanize that dog. out of however many dogs, WHICH dogs were supposedly doomed?
personally, i would bet it was not even 20% of those filmed.

and BTW not even puppy-trainers *work with a blank slate* - pups are living creatures with instincts, breed traits,
individual temperaments, and life-experiences of their own; their dam may have been dog-social or dog-aggro, socially-savvy
or a defensive wallflower, confident and calm or frantically-OCD; they may have grown up under a shed, in a house, or in an
I/O kennel run attached to a garage - every one of those factors shapes that puppy and their perception, as well as behavior.
no - pos-R trainers, vet-behaviorists, CAABs and other handling + training pros see more than a few
quick pokes and Alpha-rolls - they see a series of needlessly provocative + confrontational events, all scripted
to create drama, which opinion has been broadly distributed from the first airing of the first-episode.

addressing the logic referred to: using human-aggression to STOP the dog aggressing is not only Not Logical -
it merely escalates the stress, tension and level of resistance on both sides. it IS, i would contend, logical to avoid aggressing oneself, and instead reduce confrontation - and DE-escalate the entire situation;
stop forcing, reduce the intensity, and so on.
yes - which is why many, many people have contended that at the very bare-minimum, Natl-Geo channel
should MOVE the CM/DW to another time-slot, so that children do not watch (and later imitate) these techniques.
IMO it is extremely self-serving to claim this is general-audience TV - and then slap a disclaimer on it, which young kids
cannot read, but by golly, they can watch the show + listen to the patter that accompanies the visuals.

U cannot have it both ways; either it is family-viewing and SAFE, or it is labeled hazardous and NOT family-viewing.
pick one...

this article is interesting, but all over the map - and the fuzzy terminology is not helpful in explaining the writers opinion,
or the reward-based training communities perception, or the actual behavioral-science model of k9-learning.
the only thing that IS clear, is that the author claims CM/DW as a TV-program has done more good for dogs than bad;
i disagree, as i see the casual punishment of dogs and even young puppies has escalated in severity enormously,
over the years that the show has run - viewers have apparently become desensitized to seeing physical punishment,
and think that a punishment-bazooka to kill a behavioral-mosquito is a reasonable response.

it is very hard to HURT a dog using rewards; if U reward the wrong thing, simply stopping the reward fixes the problem.
OTOH -
it is very easy to seriously damage a dog using physical punishment, whether with a choke-chain, shock, prongs, etc;
it is even easier to damage a dog profoundly using emotionally threatening or adversarial techniques -
pinning, staring, looming-over, and so on. trust is important when we deal with an animal that could, if they chose,
very seriously hurt us; destroying trust makes a dog far more-dangerous than merely clicking at the wrong
split-second, ever conceivably could.

JMO + IME, Ur mileage may vary,
--- terry

__________________
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
*wolves R wolves, dogs R dogs, + primates R us.*
tmp, sept-2007