Quote:
Originally Posted by kandy
With a dog that exhibits fear like this, I would not recommend being stern. That could just compound the problem when the dog starts to associate the loud scary noises with his human suddenly becoming unpredictable. While Cesar Milan's methods may work with some dogs, his general rule of thought is that every single behavior is dominance motivated. IMO this is baloney - most behaviors have nothing to do with dominance.
|
I've read his books and he doesn't think everything is dominance related (he talks about submissive behavior too), but he does specialize in dominance dogs so most of the dogs on his show lean that way.
Mostly I agree with your post. People need to take things they see on his show and read in his books with a grain of salt. Dogs are individuals and his methods aren't a be all end of dog training. In fact his methods are best applied to very specific cases and people usually shouldn't be copying him.
I actually like his show and find it quite entertaining, but I hate that it makes inexperienced dog owners think that by watching his show they have a firm grasp of dog behavior and training. I'm really starting to dislike the fact that I'm seeing people yank their dogs around on a slip collar and think that they're training, when in reality the dog just looks unbelievably confused, because that's what they see him do on tv. The shows are edited down a whole ton, and the stuff on leash is just a very small portion of what he's doing with the owners and the dogs. Obviously they're edited to show the most dramatic and entertaining parts. You can't just poke a dog in the neck or pull on a leash and get it to comply, which is what the show leads people to believe.