Im sorry, but this is absolutley diabolical. Words cannot express!

[Sid_Wolf]

but many dogs are not rehabilitated for life, many other trainers are now having to go around and correct issues cause by people following his techniques, or in some cases, even Milan himself!

in some cases, he may actually get the results you see, but remember this is TV, its edited, a LOT, to show what they want you to see. They dont show failure

they may not yelp, but that doesnt mean they are scared, this just shows that you dont fully understand the signals being given by the dogs, lip licking, averting gaze, tail between legs etc are all signs of fear and stress, and every single dog i have seen on that program shows at least one of these signals

and your last statement depends on whether the dog is actually rehabilitated for life, see my 1st 2 points lol

kira is incredibly fast, we shall see

[Kissu & Aara]

I agree with Sid 100%

[Sid_Wolf]

winning

[James]

but many dogs are not rehabilitated for life, many other trainers are now having to go around and correct issues cause by people following his techniques, or in some cases, even Milan himself!

in some cases, he may actually get the results you see, but remember this is TV, its edited, a LOT, to show what they want you to see. They dont show failure

they may not yelp, but that doesnt mean they are scared, this just shows that you dont fully understand the signals being given by the dogs, lip licking, averting gaze, tail between legs etc are all signs of fear and stress, and every single dog i have seen on that program shows at least one of these signals

and your last statement depends on whether the dog is actually rehabilitated for life, see my 1st 2 points lol

kira is incredibly fast, we shall see

where are you getting this "many dogs are not rehabiliated for life"? I'll take your word for it, but still he has gotten MANY full rehabilitations and yes it is T.V and it can be edited, but we don't know how much of it is and isn't. Furthermore ONLY using postive reinforcement doesn't always work either or can take an incredibly long time to work to a point where the dog is fully rehabiliated.

I do understand the signals thank you very much , I just haven't seen to much of that behavior in the shows or it is only briefly they behave this way.

also you didn't really answer my question of "how can a dog go from extremely dog aggressive to happy and playing with dogs purely through fear of CM or the owner" and "it can be edited" isn't really an answer.

Kira is extremly quick No idea how we could measure who is faster tbf

[James]

winning

pfffttt, so are not!

pretty sure we've gotten to the point now where we are debating for the sake of it and we're to stubborn to stop or its just to much fun

[Sid_Wolf]

in a race

And I did, i said some dogs may be rehabilitated, there are failures too, and VERY rarely will you see a previously DA dog running free with others, milans updates are all done just him, and a dog, no updated footage (unless this is a new addition, i havent watched recent episodes)

Have I said to only use positive reinforcement? There are many ways to train using adversatives, which dont involve cutting off a dogs air supply

If you havent seen the signals, your listening too much to milans and the narrators bull, and not paying enough attention to the dog, the signals are there, loud and clear

[James]

in a race

And I did, i said some dogs may be rehabilitated, there are failures too, and VERY rarely will you see a previously DA dog running free with others, milans updates are all done just him, and a dog, no updated footage (unless this is a new addition, i havent watched recent episodes)

Have I said to only use positive reinforcement? There are many ways to train using adversatives, which dont involve cutting off a dogs air supply

If you havent seen the signals, your listening too much to milans and the narrators bull, and not paying enough attention to the dog, the signals are there, loud and clear

I have seen lots of episodes of dogs running and playing and walking with other dogs after being Rehabilitated from DA.

I never said you did, Neither did I say I agree with cutting off the dogs air supply, I do think its neccessary in extreme situations, But you are simply tunnel viosioning that to attack CM and ignore all of the other good work he does.

Again you are ASSUMING that i miss them, I have seen the signals, just rarely, your making out its in every episode which is clearly not the case.

Race them? how? Kita is to lazy to run her full speed in a race infact seldom do i see Kita running at her full pace lol

[Simon&Sophia]

If you havent seen the signals, your listening too much to milans and the narrators bull, and not paying enough attention to the dog, the signals are there, loud and clear

Something i believe all too strongly in. Listen to a dog. Watch a dog. Know a dog. Be a dog (theoretically). This will help you understand the behaviour and the mindset. Then, its alot easier.

[Sid_Wolf]

lol timed run then, or you're just too scared to loose

It is in every episode i've ever seen, even just whale eyes, its there.

I cant see any case where cutting off a dogs lifeline is ever necessary? care to elaborate?

[James]

lol timed run then, or you're just too scared to loose

It is in every episode i've ever seen, even just whale eyes, its there.

I cant see any case where cutting off a dogs lifeline is ever necessary? care to elaborate?

In every episode you've ever watched? You must have been unlucky o_O

I Shall Elaborate, it may be in neccessary in a situation where the dog literally wants to kill or attack another dog, or trying to attack a person...

a timed run? sounds like an idea ^_^

[Simon&Sophia]

if your dog is agressive to offlead dogs, you dont take it to a place where it is likely to come across offlead dogs, and you use a muzzle. If you set the dog up to fail, its gunna fail.

He gets results through fear. But you leave that dog alone in a situation its uncomfortable with and eventually it will snap, just not around milan or the owner, because its learnt to fear what will happen if it does.

Milan has no concept of dog body language, at all, or if he does he pays not attention to the blatent signals the dog is given, if he did he would know not to push the dog any further.

basically all Milans doing is what we tell people all the time, DO NOT punish the dog for growling, because all it does is removes the growl, not the feelings behind it.

As owners we have a responsibility towards our dogs to make sure they are comfortable with the situations we put them in, milan is going against this and, if anything, reinforcing the fact that they shouldnt be comfortable in the situations that he, and then the owner, will put them in.

Extreme accuracy in this post.

[Sid_Wolf]

In every episode you've ever watched? You must have been unlucky

I Shall Elaborate, it may be in neccessary in a situation where the dog literally wants to kill or attack another dog, or trying to attack a person...

a timed run? sounds like an idea ^_^

I've watched most of the 1st few seasons!

Still never necessary, there are many other way of restraint. How about removing the dog from the situation? You obviously have hold of the dog to perform a pin, so why not just take it away?

[James]

Extreme accuracy in this post.

half the post was subjective i.e opinion based, its only accurate if it agrees with your own opinions...'

[James]

I've watched most of the 1st few seasons!

Still never necessary, there are many other way of restraint. How about removing the dog from the situation? You obviously have hold of the dog to perform a pin, so why not just take it away?

you make it sound so simple, to perform a pin you have to come in contact with the dog, which is risk in itself, and just take it away?? what? you'd have to litterally DRAG the dog away.....by the lead, wheres the lead attached? the neck, whats in the neck? the windpipe? which is going to have alot of pressure put on it anyway choking the dog..... Also that will take more time and strength.

[Sid_Wolf]

all you have to do is turn around and lead the dog away, it may pull back initially, but it will soon follow

and if a dog is attacking another, you grab it by the back legs and walk backwards, you can lead it to a safe enough distance that it wont put up too much of a fight when you lead it away.

Can tell you've never had to break up a proper fight

[James]

all you have to do is turn around and lead the dog away, it may pull back initially, but it will soon follow

and if a dog is attacking another, you grab it by the back legs and walk backwards, you can lead it to a safe enough distance that it wont put up too much of a fight when you lead it away.

Can tell you've never had to break up a proper fight

you make it sound so simple! when it is not, just tug it away and it will come, thats a load of crock, im sorry but if you can simply lead a big pitbull away in kill mode then you must be some kind of super human lol. Also you run the risk of the dog slipping the collar and then your in a world of Sh*t

again you've simplified it, jus grab the back legs, which firstly involves time, secondly involves strength, thirdly if the dog has got hold of the other dog in its jaws it will drag the other dog with it.

and I suppose you've broken up dogs actually trying to kill each other? no i didn't think so

[Sid_Wolf]

Actually the shock of being picked up by the back legs will usually make the dog stop and look around like 'WTF?' which give you a window of oppetunity to pull the dog out of reach

I've broken up grey from trying to do some serious damage him and this dog did NOT get on! Was scary!

Please explain how you would pin a dog which was mid 'in gunna kill you' fight?

[Bec]

Furthermore to use this method of positive reinforcement owners HAVE to have a good fundemental understanding of Dog Body language and behavior i.e recognising subtle hints of aggression or fear, which alot just simply won't.

But you don't need to understand those things to use negative reinforcement or positive punishment? My god, this has to be one of the strangest things I've ever read on this forum. I don't even know where to start with the above. Just... wow.

I have no problem with using R- or P+ when they are used correctly, but the fact is many people don't understand how to do this or that simply alpha rolling a dog or interrupting it's behaviour or air blocking it like we see CM do to gain control back is not a complete picture of how behaviour modification takes place.

Can we really say CM gets results? How do we know anything about the dogs he trains beyond what we see on his TV show? The fact is with ANY dog training when we're dealing with dogs with behaviourial problems, we need to change the way the dog's thinking and their emotional state. It is far more complex than what we see on CM's show, if we want to get results for good.

Postive Reinforcement is of course the most ideal training method, we can all agree on that, however some postive reinforcement, redirection etc training methods, do require some "know-how" and basic understanding of dog psychology and we have to remember the majority of owners are not like most of us here that really do our research and their dogs are just their companions, their friends, which there is nothing wrong with that. But then their dogs get out of hand because they refuse to discipline their dogs, which in essence is somewhat easier to carry out to people that don't know otherwise, because in their minds its "cruel" but it is not. Their refusal to discipline their dogs results in a dog that has no boundaries and we end up with these dire situations.

Positive reinforcement is not a training method, it's just one of the four quadrants of operant conditioning.

I don't consider any one method to be ideal, what is the 'ideal' method changes from dog to dog and owner to owner and is dependent on their situation and skill level. MANY dog owners do not have the skill to properly implement corrections, like anything, these are things that have to be taught. When we are dealing with aggressive dogs I cannot stress enough that the average owner is simply NOT equip with the skills to deal with these dogs themselves, regardless of the methods used. Any time we are working with an aggressive dog it requires "know how" on canine behaviour and body language, to imply this is only important or relevant when using positive based methods is ignorant and ridiculous.

I would actually suggest that the average dog owner that I come across resorts to using physical corrections to control their dogs far more often than I see an owner try to use positive based methods. There's nothing wrong with using physical corrections, but again, it has to be done correctly and appropriately. Behaviour modification is so much more complex than being about negative vs positive.

[Bec]

Air blocking a dog is something we may use in an extreme emergency where people or other dogs are at risk and there are no other options.

It is NOT a training method. A dog in that state will not be capable of learning ANYTHING. CM intentionally sets up dogs so they are in a position where they will go over their threshold, this is not training, it is bad management.

Absolutely, we cannot always control our environment and dogs will be put in situations where they may go out of their comfort zone which is why a proper training program will modify the dog's behaviour and their way of thinking, and their emotional response when they see something that will normally trigger aggression so they learn they have options other than aggression. If your dog still acts aggressively when around other dogs then whatever you are doing is not working to actually change their emotional state and line of thinking.

[Sid_Wolf]

@James - OWNED!

[Simon&Sophia]

half the post was subjective i.e opinion based, its only accurate if it agrees with your own opinions...'

*facepalm*

True, if you confine it to this little box of a discussion. Take this to Crufts, or an dog breed association, or 95% of "trainers", handlers, owners etc and how many will agree.

What turns opinion to fact? Agreement.

Infact, if you apply that to this discussion, there are more people agreeing with that notion than the one you are presenting. Im not saying that this makes it fact, but it surely shows that it is closer to what people would regard as such than not? Making it accurate?

Suffice it to say, that I agree with her post; as do the seeming majority.

[Ravenwolf]

but many dogs are not rehabilitated for life, many other trainers are now having to go around and correct issues cause by people following his techniques, or in some cases, even Milan himself!

in some cases, he may actually get the results you see, but remember this is TV, its edited, a LOT, to show what they want you to see. They dont show failure

they may not yelp, but that doesnt mean they are scared, this just shows that you dont fully understand the signals being given by the dogs, lip licking, averting gaze, tail between legs etc are all signs of fear and stress, and every single dog i have seen on that program shows at least one of these signals

and your last statement depends on whether the dog is actually rehabilitated for life, see my 1st 2 points lol

Still, I challenge you to find an example of a dog Cesar worked with who isn't successfully rehabilitated when the owners stick to an exercise/discipline/affection model and use the techniques he's given them (aside from Cotton, the only example I could find!). The techniques only fail when done incorrectly, and if the owner is not capable of doing it themselves he either takes the dog to his home for total rehabilitation, or in some extreme cases he's recommended removing the dog from the situation and helped them find a more suitable dog. And yes, I'm sure there is no shortage of people who just pick up the techniques from the show, use them incorrectly and get themselves into all manner of trouble - but if we're hating on Cesar because people watch the show and think they're instant pros then we have to hate on Brad Pattison and Victoria Stilwell too.

Flooding means basically chucking the dog in the deep end. I.E if a dog is agressive, milan takes the dog close enough for the dog to react, which is just reinforcing the reaction, then he chokes it, pins it, kicks it in the groin until it gives in. the issue isnt solved, the dog is still DA, but has learnt not to show it around Milan...

...He gets results through fear. But you leave that dog alone in a situation its uncomfortable with and eventually it will snap, just not around milan or the owner, because its learnt to fear what will happen if it does.

Milan has no concept of dog body language, at all, or if he does he pays not attention to the blatent signals the dog is given, if he did he would know not to push the dog any further.

Are you even watching the same show?! These are extreme cases. These dogs aren't blowing up and snapping just because Cesar has antagonized them - this is how those dogs are behaving and why he has been called! yes, they bait the dog with whatever the trigger is - dogs/humans/objects - because he needs to see what the reaction is and how bad it is so he can know to fix it. I've seen Victoria stand by and do nothing while a dog leapt and bit at a boy so that she could see the reaction. The result was the boy got bit in the face right on the show (though they didn't show it actually happen, just choking the dog as they dragged it outside by the collar afterward).

And as for fear, I haven't seen a whole ton of fear reactions on the show. The dogs don't slink after him in fear of being beaten - there's a difference between fear and learning not to mess with someone. He's not over the top with affection - if there's one thing I learned from the show, it's that dogs enjoy just proximity and spending time together, and even at a distance they can still be relaxed but still paying attention to you without the need for constant contact and validation. He works with many dogs instilling more confidence in them, and you don't get that through abuse!

His technique does involve getting the reaction and working the down from there, and I get how some people do not like the flooding technique and disagree with it from that stand point. I use the technique that you describe - keeping the reactions low key and gradually closing the distance to the trigger - with horses, where the response is usually a flight one and the difficulty is exacerbated by size. If you keep them calm and never let them escalate beyond a 3 or 4 while training it prevents 8 or 9 in new situations. That being said, there are situations where that is just not practical and flooding is the best option. It's usually ugly, and not a little traumatic, but sometimes they really need to be 'thrown into the deep end' so that they can see that the water really isn't all that deep!

[Ravenwolf]

I've watched most of the 1st few seasons!

Still never necessary, there are many other way of restraint. How about removing the dog from the situation? You obviously have hold of the dog to perform a pin, so why not just take it away?

Because what does that solve? Nothing. It calls to mind the case of one family that had 2 or 3 dogs so aggressive toward each other they couldn't be in the same room. This family lived their life juggling cages, gates, walking the dogs at different times, and any time there was a slip up in keeping them separated there was a fight.

Post-Cesar: all dogs living quietly in the same house together, even after he left.

Using avoidance is a short-term solution, and in many cases can make a situation worse the next time around. 2 dogs fight, you take them away immediately, the next time they see each other the fight is still on, because they didn't learn to accept each other's presence and deal with the issues at hand.

[Bec]

I don't see how any of us could really know how successful CM's 'rehabilitations' are without seeing the dogs ourselves outside of what is shown on a heavily edited TV program.

I meet plenty of people who think the methods they are using are working, everyone has a different interpretation of 'results'. I would however suggest that if a dog has to be managed to the nth degree, behaviour modification really has not taken place. If you have to keep using behaviourial interrupters like a "tap" or a "tsst" or air blocking your dog or alpha rolling it then it's quite obvious these methods aren't achieving a result in the long term.

I think CM has a natural confidence with dogs but so much of what CM does is impractical for many dog owners to implement on their own, there is no use having CM handle and "rehab" a dog that the owner then cannot control themselves. What a trainer can do with a dog is really irrelevant, it is what a trainer can get the owner to achieve that is important.

The 'extreme case' argument never really works for me, as the behaviourists I know would see dogs like these on a weekly basis yet get results quickly without needing to use CM's methods.

[Laine]

One thing that seems to have been forgotten, or not mentioned because no one knew, is that CM is NOT a dog Trainer and even he's admitted it. I think he's supposed to be a behaviourist which is something totally different. Does that mean he can't train? No, but at the same time, that doesn't mean he can, either.

I personally don't like CM because I think he's too arrogant (come on, the "dog whisperer", as if he's the only person to have the clue on how to train dogs?). But then I've never watched his TV show (no TV ) and things like this video make me inclined not to watch it. It's not that he puts the dog into situations where the dog reacts, and it's not even that he uses force on the dogs. It's the extremes he goes to. You do NOT kick a dog in a sensative area (or anywhere actually). In all the stuff I've read here, no one who has said they've used tapping, nudging or whatever to their dog has it been mentioned they've done so in the gut/groin of their dog. It's always the butt or flank; totally different area than CM.

I also don't like how he handled the bulldog by basically suffocating it. Not how you handle things, either.

As others pointed out, this is TV which demands instant results AND doesn't show the process to get from A to B. These dogs might be last chance dogs, but he should still have to work with them over the course of more than one day. You don't train dogs for continual hours as the dogs wouldn't mentally last that long, nor would they really retain what they learned. Forcing it won't make a dog learn, either. That's why training is normally done in short spans. It might take a while but you're more likely to have a dog retain what you want them to.

Even though I dislike CM, I do think some of what he does could have merit. At least he's not Brad Pattison. Now he's someone that could give CM lessons on how to be abusive not only to dogs but owners, too.