The video attracts a lot of very stupid comments. People are insistent that Millan is a fraud and their arguments are all stupid and show that they don't have it in them to think as dogs do.
We don't see what happens next in the video. The result can be weeks off in the future through several similar tribulations. Eventually though it is the dog's owner and not Caesar Millan who must take over as leader of the pack. If he cannot do that or is unwilling then the dog is in for real trouble. The owner must forget whatever happened in the past to the dog to cause its food related aggressive behavior, all that matters is the here and now and forcing the dog to regard him as god. Eventually through similar training the dog will go "here, take it. It's yours"
That is my opinion and nothing you can say will shake it.
Ex.1:
I had two Belgian sheepdogs adopted past their puppy phases. The first one took forever to come around to me. She kept her distance as kidnapped victim. She wouldn't play. She didn't acknowledge any kind of toy. She wouldn't accept petting. She was a drag for a very long time, nearly a full year. Ugly besides. She had a very long gangly teenage phase. Finally she came around and we had a blast together. She developed into a gorgeous little princess. Rather small for her breed and delicate. She wore her thin chain collar as a necklace.
The second Belgian sheepdog was more like a trans, her behavior far less delicate. She behaved more as a male dog plus she was bigger, more powerful, more strong willed. I was unwilling to wait for her to come around so I forced it. Immediately I taught her I am the boss. And that means of everything.
I did to her what mother dogs do to each of their pups. It's actually the most important lesson dogs learn, very young, to submit, and she never had this lesson. The mother dog grabs each of her pups by the neck and forces them into the ground showing them dominance to the point of killing them until they submit for their life. That's what I did to her. I grabbed her neck and forced into the ground until she stopped struggling and submitted.
That was step one.
Then she avoided me. So I coaxed her in then grabbed her and held on tightly so she couldn't escape by struggling and held on until she exhausted her strength, and she was very strong for a dog. When she finally submitted I kept holding on and squeezed even harder to show her I have reserve strength, even more power, that I can kill her. Her life is in my hands. I did this about three or four, possibly five times.
The last time a friend was visiting, the new dog avoiding me, I grabbed her and did that double squeezing bit, and she flew out of my arms, spun around and looked back at me like she's looking at the devil, and my visiting friend regarded me differently thereafter. That incident became a story he told afterwards about how I'm a complete nutter handling my new dog. I heard him relate that a few times. I told him that I'm unwilling to wait for her to come around like the previous one. (The second one actually, this was the 3rd Belgian, not the second, the first was a pup) I said then, "Laugh all you like, come around later and she'll be jumping into my arms.
And that was the case. She jumped into my arms too much, actually. I then had to train her that we'll have a spot designated for that. Her power spot, a step down from the carpeted living room into the onetime porch redesigned into a greenhouse with a different industrial carpet. That transitional architectural step down became the place where I'd give her 5 to 10 minutes of pure one on one attention every day, telling her how gorgeous she is. All I would do is sit on that step and from wherever she was in the yard she'd come flying and literally cannonball into my arms. Forcefully. POW! "Pet me, and tell me I'm gorgeous!"
Ex.2 Toni saw all this and wanted a Belgian. I picked up an incredible young dog. Man, I would have loved to own the dog that I found for her. A young male that took me for leader of the pack immediately. He was the most beautiful Belgian I've ever seen. And I mean it. I took him for walks around the neighborhood while I had him for two weeks before driving him to Atlanta. He heeled perfectly right off. The best I've ever seen. Anywhere, even at obedience shows. He crowded a bit, actually. He'd have points knocked off for that. He would not leave my side. He was interested in things happening around but he would not pull and no danger of taking off. None. If he could attach himself to my side permanently then he would have. We were buds. Instantly.
While he was so strong willed in dog terms. He walked right through the screen door to get to me. Still a pup, he had my mature female completely cowered, herself very strong willed. He was larger and even more fully coated. He had the coat of a black lion. All he did was glance back at her and she fell back so that he could be petted and not her. I had to tie him up to pet my own dog and he did not like that one bit. My attention must go to him.
On the way to Georgia he'd get loose out of anything I tried to constrain him while I went into a restaurant or wherever I stopped along the way. Then stay right there at the car. We should have named him Houdini. There will be no abandoning of the dog along the route. All stops along the way he stayed right at my side. Tennessee has beautiful rest stops where I walked him off leash and he wouldn't wander beyond my side. He wouldn't run around and play. He stayed right there at my side the entire way there.
But Toni couldn't handle him. She wrote me that she had to give him away. Toni just couldn't take on the attitude of top dog of the pack. In her mind it was always a situation of delicate refined woman in possession of a too willful dog. She wrote of the impressive things the dog did, escape the garage with its multiple latches and locks, roam the neighborhood and drag logs with mushrooms growing, things with interesting smells, stealing things from people's porches and bringing them home. She couldn't control him. She couldn't teach him. He was too much for her. Toni simply could not become the leader of their little two member pack, rather, the dog was leader of their little pack and became no end of trouble for her so that whole effort failed. Had she just shown the dog physically and directly that she could kill him then all those problems would evaporate but Toni just didn't have it in her. She thinks like a human and not like a dog.
9 comments:
Nothing works 100% of the time. We have worked with Cesar on some problem dogs with mixed success. I think his methods work better than most and are based on valid dog psychology, or at least they seem to be. I mostly follow his methods myself, because they make sense to me and work. The thing to remember about Cesar is that he typically gets the worst cases, and he does often get amazing results. The human taking over the alpha role is a pretty reliable technique for control and harmony, but there are dogs who will challenge that anyway, and some are determined to take it to blows. I believe this episode is the worst dog bite Cesar has ever gotten. He used to use more aggressive submission techniques, but pared that down in recent years. Most difficult aggression problems are dog on dog. They seem to be much easier to teach not to bite people. Dogs are just like people in that there is a wide range of personality, dysfunction, and even mental illness. It can't all be fixed in either species.
Most people don't know shit about dogs. Worse is that most people don't have the temperament or personality to be dog owners, much less alphas. I understand Caesars techniques and can see how they are applied and I've used them on occasion with my dogs to great success and helping other friends with their dogs too.
You don't have to be all that alpha and smart to own and care for a dog. That's their appeal. If Cesar Millan couldn't control my dog, I'd be having second thoughts about my relationship with said dog. Plenty of pups in the pound.
Dogs know that people are not dogs.
Another video of his is a lot better but it's unfortunately too repeaty-y, full segments are repeated.
Celebrities are having trouble with their dogs, a female exercise guru with a nervous bite-y dog that nobody can touch and Kelsey Grammer and one of his wives. The dog owners are all messes. They do everything wrong. And I mean everything.
In their cases the dogs are nervous types, and everything the owners do agitates the dog's nervousness rather than allay it before proceeding. Millan is bitten again and the woman freaks out. She freaks about everything.
My favorite part, though, is Millan himself taking the first dog home to recondition it by using his own family. His son is quite good at a training technique of stepping on the leash and approaching the dog. The boy steps off the leash at the precise moment. He has developed an instinct for handling dogs. This is only the second dog that he's worked with.
Then Millan has his associates approach the dog the wrong way because he knows that's what most people do. They raise their voice, "Oh what a cute little dog." And come at it hands splayed to pet it, then touch it's head to pet it, all overwhelming to nervous little Chihuahuas. He trains the little dog that all those people doing the wrong thing is not a threat. He's funny the way he imitates how people act. He's the most funny when he's showing people what they are doing wrong by imitating their behavior. It cracks me up.
People don't take the time to calm down their dog before opening a door. Millan is great at getting people to bring down their dog's energy and to stay behind and knock it off with all the barking. The owners get worked up themselves because they know the dog will misbehave and that causes the dog to misbehave more. They continually reinforce bad behavior instead of taking time with them and establishing boundaries, and being consistent with their behavior.
One time in dog training class with my German Shepard, this was second level where dogs do more fun stuff like jumping things, and (to me not fun) rigid type of retrievals, obedience is actually weirdly unnatural, I overheard one trainer say to another, "I noticed that dog trainers have the most well behaved children." The other returned, "That's because they're consistent. The child knows the parent will give the direction once, and that's it. No sass, no discussion, no negotiation, no testing of boundaries. A direction is a direction, once, and after that the child knows a correction will follow, and that's consistent." The first asked, "So they treat their kids like dogs?" The second returned, "No, they treat their dogs like they should treat their kids, consistently. Consistency is the key to training good behavior in both cases."
Overhearing this I understood how all five of us kids are so well behaved. My parents were very consistent this way. (I couldn't wait to break out of that and become misbehaving but all that's on me.
And dog owners keep rewarding the wrong behavior while not understanding how to create good behavior.
My dog squeezing was the roughest thing I ever did and that was to speed what would come naturally eventually. Belgians are remarkably easy to train. To them a cross word is devastating and unnecessary. They live for praise. Withholding praise is equivalent to correction in other breeds. It just kills them. My females needed to be touched and constantly told they're doing great or they're devastated.
A few months ago a hunter told me the most amazing display of dog obedience he ever saw was my third Belgian who received only rudimentary training. Just the beginner basics. Our little routine was something we did together for her to show off how great she is. And she was frighteningly good. If you saw her your first thought would be she looks like a little Nazi. She was simply the fastest thing ever alert for clues to what the next thing will be. I mixed up commands so she wouldn't anticipate and she responded instantly, and I mean instantly.
For example, I'd use a signal for heel, then stop and stay, create separation that she hated the most. She wouldn't know if the next command would be, "go," or "sit," or "come," but whatever it was she did it with such élan such impressive éclat that I had to stop doing this on hard surface or she'd crack her little elbows on "down."
And that was just us playing. A routine for her to have fun and show off for me. Her chance to be great with me. I was just showing my friend our little basic routine and it left an impression such that he recalled it decades later as the best he'd ever seen. And his dogs all hunt. That's why I like the breed so much. They basically train themselves merely by me talking and showing and being consistent.
I think I mentioned I taught them where to pee by drinking a beer and showing them once. After that, locked in.
Good stories. I love hearing of animals with spirit and humans who know how to bring out the best in them in a mutually respectful yet clearly defined relationship.
In the expanded version of the Holly episode, Caesar talks about the bite he received and the negative energy conveyed through the bite to him, and how he needed to handle that. I appreciated seeing how fast the bite happened and his response of "I didn't see that coming", as I experienced a similarly unexpected bite several years ago that I didn't see coming and the surprise and negative energy received through the bite was worse than the blood and physical pain.
A bite like that triggers the fight, flight or freeze response, and in my opinion he handled it well by responding strongly without allowing more energy to flow than needed to back Holly off and prevent further attack.
I love this guy. The people who criticise him are the ones who think their dog is special and almost human (or some sort of better form of life). I saw one recently where Cesar went to China and dealt with a very angry and abused dog there. He's a miracle worker with the dogs.
Don't bother me with the deets of his private life. I don't care. Not my business.
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