I’ve not seen Cesar’s new show, but it sounds a lot like a canine version of Donald Trump’s.
The most important part of the blog post is this bit:
In terms of wolves and dogs, it is important to remember both parts of this essential paradox: The dog is a wolf; the dog is not a wolf. Biologically wolves and dogs are so close that they must be considered the same species, despite thousands of years of conscious and unconscious selection by humans of particular traits in dogs, none more intensely than during the past 200 years.
The contemporary wolf is primarily a creation of centuries of human persecution, habitat fragmentation, and natural forces. At various times in different parts of the world, the divide between dogs and wolves has been less wide than the chasms opened in Western Europe and the United States by wolf eradication campaigns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, campaigns that contemporary wolf haters would like to reopen.
Yet the use of wolves as a model for dogs in society can teach a lesson about dog training that some people who invoke them might not like to hear. Wolves, by all accounts, respond poorly to aversive training. They shut down. They rebel. They flee. Many dogs do the same, which leaves these questions: Why use aversive methods that cause pain and distress when you can achieve better results with praise, kindness, respect, and rewards? Why try to turn your dog into a stimulus response machine when you can teach it using rewards and praise? Why treat any animal or person differently than you want to be treated?
There is such a thing called dominance. No one can seriously deny its existence. An animal is dominant if it has preferential access to scarce resources. It doesn’t mean that it’s the biggest bully on the block. It just means that other animals recognize its authority as an “elder statesman,” and all it have certain privileges. If wild dogs lived under tyrannical pack leaders, there would be nothing but utter chaos.
But if you think that ethological term of art gives you the right to punch and strangle your dog, you are sorely mistaken.
Dominance has been used to justify all sorts of unscientific and actually quite nasty ways of relating to dogs.
It’s why many people avoid using it, and so many others even deny that the term exists.
I wish there were a better word for it, but there isn’t one.
I believe Cesar has jumped the shark. I think the campaigns against him have largely been successful, and it’s really the last hurrah of this bizarre and quite inaccurate paradigm.
Everything you said. All of it.
This “dominance” thing is a very thorny issue. Observational analysis clearly shows that when some dogs walk into a room, other dogs listen (in a manner of speaking–its akin to the general response to a judge walking into his/her court room or the President walking into the Senate.)
This sense of “presence” is often called dominance, and I too have used this word to describe it. But in an earlier exchange on this very Blog, I was corrected by both Scottie and Jess, who suggested that “assertiveness” was a more accurate term. Upon reflection, I have to agree, and I now use that term, in the sense of self-assuredness (not aggressiveness, which is another issue altogether), when talking about such a dog.
And yes, carrots are infinitely preferable to sticks when working w/ dogs (and people).
I started in formal obedience training in 1953, competed very successfully, worked as a professional for a few years, have attended dozens of training clases and seminars by a wide variety of trainers, taught training classes for 40 years : and have an extensive library of books dating back to 1847. and I would certainly challenge Mr Derr’s blanket definition of “traditional” training as abusive. and based primarily on aversives.
Yes, there have always been some trainers who misuse their power over an animal; and the more knowledgable despise those persons as much as anyone– or perhaps even more.
Good trainers have always been eager to accept a better approach/technique/method, and it would require many, many pages just to outline the history of dog training and the individuals who have contributed to its advancement.
Have you seen the recent interview with Millan and British tv presenter Alan Titchmarsh? You might like it.
Yes, I have. He almost leads Cesar into it!
I strongly feel both schools are needed.
Ordinary carrot’s just don’t work to everyone.
Like some of us need stronger hand or special kind of intervention and so do dogs.
Some of us have been let playing for too long time and are now in need of strict change.
Holding-tight-in-arms-until-relaxed is a method that’s been very succesfully used among kids and young people.
Sometimes only a good tight hold and pressing against to the ground is the only intervention that can be used to over-paniced or destructive persons.
So if those are used and work among humans, why not among dogs ? ?
I see every day quite terrible dog + owner partnerships, showing no proper discipline at all. These people use too thin and weak voice when talking to dogs, their body language is wrong; basically their spoil they dogs treating them as they were puppies forever.
So in this Milan does a great job – we have to behave like a leader, be self-assure, if we want to have our message to get thru.
I believe everybody understands this. It’s the dominance thing, no problemo ?
If owners could express / transmit truly THEIR REAL NEEDS to the dog, the dog could understand. But as long as the owner is talking baby-language and don’t punish clearly enuf for a bad decision, it’s doomed to fail. The dog keeps on playing his own games, because he thinks he can do so, and there’s no leader to tell something else.
I think people mix things when critizing Milan.
He doesn’t train the dog to do its work. but he’s a behaviorist shrink for the bad cases. Of course no-one would train her dog to retrieve or do tricks via those methods.
Ahhh, dominance – the honorary four letter word in dog training circles! I must admit that I hate the “carrot and stick” analogy as it sounds to many people’s ears to be “treat or beat”. Even basic training is far more complex than what sounds like applying just two choices.
By the way, isn’t reward also a stimulus, just a positive one? The problem is, not all dogs respond to the same positive or negative stimuli in the same way and many humans are inconsistent when giving said stimuli. Not to mention sympathy (essential) getting mixed up with sentimentality (dangerous).
I would think that “Holding-(your dog)-tight-in-arms-until-relaxed” is an acceptable way to handle an overexcited dog–its ultimately a soothing action (unless the dog is people-averse or claustrophobic to start with) and thus a reward. But the dominating behavior often touted by Mr. Millan seems to be counter-productive in the long run. Also he has a number of shibboleths, such as not allowing the dog to be in front on a walk, that just don’t hold water in the light of behavioral analyses of wolves and dogs. (In wild wolf packs, the “alpha” male may often be found near the back of his pack.)
Having said that, his techniques are very effective–for him. You’ll note that his shows carry a caveat for people not to try using his methods on their own. There are good and abiding reasons for that. His biggest sin, by the standards of most modern dog/wolf behaviorists, is this whole “dominance” schtick. He is projecting a feudalistic human model on dogs–a model that the behaviorists have found to be a bad fit for dogs and wolves (and for that matter, for people.)
The bottom-line in both schools of thought is that you want the dog to learn that abiding within certain behavioral parameters is more important to you than transgressing those parameters is to him, and by extension, that adhering to those parameters produces a happy and rewarding experience for all involved.
In those cases where humans literally use a stick to train their dogs, the only positive result for the dog is the absence of pain and abuse. Although a form of catharsis for the human, its ultimately a degrading experience for both. Anger, abuse and fear don’t produce a good bond or a healthy relationship, but they are a good recipe for rebellion, hate and retribution. (I’m reminded of my daughter’s first rescued St. Bernard. He’d been kept outside, on a short chain, from the time he was a pup. He’d been sorely neglected–filthy, matted and flea-ridden. As my daughter was preparing to put him in her car, he calmly lifted his leg and peed on his former owner’s leg–to our knowledge the only time he ever did anything that could even remotely be considered antisocial.)
(In wild wolf packs, the “alpha” male often runs near the back of his pack.)
Pressure on the rib cage can induce cardiac arrest.