Royalty House
Jr Member
Cesar Millan sucks! He is no way a professional. He has had no training at all. Here is an article that I copied and pasted that says how I feel about him and why a lot better than I could. I'm posting this because I'm Sick and tired of people telling me "oh well cesar milan" say this and does this people need to see the truth being his Cruel Stone Age "Techniques". He is referred to as a behaviorist not a dog TRAINER get it straight people.
Cesar's Way? NO WAY!
Why I dislike The Dog Whisperer
by Mary Harwelik * www.peaceablecanines.com
As a professional dog trainer, I am often asked what my opinion is of the program "The Dog Whisperer" and if I "like" Cesar Millan. Well, I do not know Mr. Millan so I have no opinion of him, personally. However, I most assuredly do NOT like his show or the training techniques he uses and promotes. To sum up my opinion: the techniques Millan uses are outdated, overly harsh, borderline cruel (if not outright cruel), dangerous and can cause side-effects sometimes worse than the original behavior problem they were supposed to solve.
That's the shorthand version! But WHY do I have this opinion?
Although I am now a trainer who avoids using pain in training and focuses on using positive reinforcement, this wasn't always so. When I trained my first dog 20 years ago, pain and choke chains were the name of the dog training game. This is how trainers dealt with dogs. In fact, the "miraculous", "innovative" and "unique" methods Millan uses to "rehabilitate" dogs are old hat to crossover trainers such as myself. In fact, they'd be down right yawn-worthy - if only they didn't cause so much pain and discomfort to dogs and damage to the human-dog relationship.
Millan uses techniques that have been around since the early 1900s, the Dawn of Dog Training. These techniques cause pain and are meant to intimidate dogs; Millan is a skilled handler and an expert at using these techniques and can cause a dog to physically and emotionally shut down in a relatively short period of time - effectively eliminating the display of bad behavior. But certainly not addressing the root cause, nor teaching the dog a new, better way to behave.
I am in a unique position to speak out against Cesar Millan because I used the same techniques he uses for many years before I 'crossed over' to a kinder, more effective method based on newer research and a better understanding of how organisms learn. In the past, I've done alpha rollovers, scruff shakes, I've strung dogs up and jerked them around. I've used intimidation and caused fear to get a dog to stop reacting - just like Millan currently does. When I watch Millan's show, I cringe. Not only because I recognize the real fear and distress exhibited in the faces of the dogs as he is working with them, but because I have been on the delivering end of that leash and have caused the same fear and distress. And I know what comes after the fact - generalized fear and aggression, distrust of the owner, lack of enthusiasm.
But The Dog Whisperer production team cleans up the method Millan employs, presents it in a nice package. The footage on the program shows only the most mild of corrections, with camera people seemingly conveniently cutting away at certain times - perhaps to avoid showing growls, bites, or more obviously harsh corrections. The viewer is left with a strong impression - hopeless cases, dogs on the edge, saved from damnation by the magic of Cesar Millan. In he walks, with a smile, a wink, and a ready explanation for all he does to dogs. He's not flooding, he's "making the dog face his fear"; that's not physical force and intimidation, it's "creating calm, submissive energy in the dog". And the old excuse used for everything from inter-dog aggression to ball obsession - "the dog is dominant". In fact, perhaps the most dangerous thing about Millan are his euphemisms and the visual misrepresentation on the program of what exactly it is he's doing to dogs.
Millan talks of "energy" as if it was some mystical, magical force that he exudes to get dogs into a "calm, submissive" state. Those who understand what Millan is doing know that the real words of the day are "intimidation" and "flooding" - Millan uses physical force and pain to get a dog to "submit" and a behavioral technique called flooding to overwhelm dogs into a state of complete mental shutdown.
In one episode I viewed, a reactive Bulldog got jerked then kicked with the sole of Millan's shoe in an effort to get him under control. This happened over and over again. "I am not kicking him!" Millan clarifies, "it is never okay to kick a dog!" Apparently it's okay as long as you don't call it kicking. What sort of message is Millan sending to dog owners? Make no mistake, what Millan does is painful and causes fear and stress, regardless of the words he uses to mislead dog owners; and regardless of what fancy editing would lead you to believe.
But it sure looks impressive, don't it?
Dog owners who watch The Dog Whisperer and are impressed by Millan's quick-fix techniques fail to realize that serious dog behavior problems are not fixed in the approximately 15-minutes of airtime each case gets during the 60-minute program. There is also little if any follow-up to the cases presented. So while footage of a Before Cesar dog reacting wildly and causing mayhem stands in stark comparison to the After Cesar shots in the same show, the viewer doesn't see the long-term effects of Millan's techniques. Was the dog actually rehabilitated? Was the owner able to replicate the techniques used to maintain the results? Did the dog get better, worse, or...?
Cesar Millan is receiving a lot of publicity, much of it negative, due to the fact that he's a Hollywood trainer with his own TV show and an excellent PR team. In actuality, many trainers use methods similar to Millan's in dog training (remember, the techniques Millan uses have been around for a very long time). They just aren't in the spotlight. There really is nothing unique about Millan or what he does. He's a classic case of right person, right time, and right team backing him. This isn't about skill or unique ability. Charisma and publicity go a long way in Hollywood. And dog owners so enamored with Millan need to recognize this. There are far more gifted, kinder, more qualified trainer trainers and behaviorists out there. And better methods.
What about these better methods?
Positive reinforcement-based training that minimizes or eliminates the use of pain and intimidation in training has become very popular, especially over the past ten or fifteen years. Behaviorists have presented research demonstrating that POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT (R+) is an effective, powerful way to alter behavior and change mindset without instilling fear, causing pain, or producing troublesome side effects. More and more dog trainers are using these methods to teach dogs new behaviors and eliminate old, bad behaviors. Dogs taught through use of R+ actually learn new behaviors and the emotional issues causing problem behavior to manifest in the first place are eliminated and replaced with a new, healthier emotional state. The trainers using and promoting these methods have impressive backgrounds as scientists and authors/lecturers. Some of these more popular trainers (and personal heroes of mine) include: Karen Pryor, Gary Wilkes, Ian Dunbar, Ken Ramirez, Kathy Sdao, Jean Donaldson, Bob Bailey & Marian Breland-Bailey, and many others.
(Remember, Millan has NO real credentials. He is referred to as a behaviorist yet holds no academic degrees nor certifications.)
The method that Millan uses employs NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT (R-) and POSITIVE PUNISHMENT (P+) in training. R- uses pain/discomfort to teach a dog something new - when Millan jerks a dog into heel position, he is using R-. P+ uses pain or another unpleasant thing to stop unwanted behavior. Pinning a dog to the ground, choking him or kicking/hitting to stop aggression is P+. Since Millan describes himself not as a dog trainer but a rehabilitator, most of what he does involves STOPPING behavior, not teaching new behavior. So P+ is mainly what he uses when he works with dogs. P+ does not teach a dog a new way to behave, it suppresses behavior that is already happening. Sometimes, new or worse behavior manifests as a result of this suppression. Dogs shut down emotionally, and exhibit something called "learned helplessness" - they learn they are unable to prevent or change something in their environment and so simply stop reacting. They exhibit stress, fear, or increased aggression. R- and P+ oftentimes cause a dog to redirect aggression onto its handler. So a dog that is pinned down in response to an aggressive outburst directed at another dog suddenly turns and bites his owner instead. Now there are two problems instead of just one.
And although "dominance" is Millan's excuse for everything a dog does wrong, there are a variety of reasons a dog may act out in an aggressive or defiant way - usually fear and/or confusion are the main causes. Using pain or force to get an aggressive or fearful dog under control can seriously backfire.
When you are skilled at using positive punishment (as Millan is), the instant results can be impressive. A wildly reactive dog can be subdued into a stressed but unreactive state in mere minutes. Has any real learning taken place? Most likely nothing more than a learned fear of the punisher. Or maybe an inadvertent conditioning which leads the dog to believe that the presence of certain things in the environment are an indicator that he is about to experience pain (this can later cause extreme reactivity and increased aggression directed at new things in the environment). So an owner using punishment might see instant results, and be inclined to use punishment again. When the behavior worsens later or new behavior pops up down the line, the owner doesn't believe that the technique is at fault, obviously the punishment just wasn't administered strongly enough. So the dog experiences harsher treatment, and a downward spiral of worsened behavior/harsher punishment occurs.
Perhaps most frightening is that the person doing the punishing is actually experiencing reinforcement for inflicting pain on a dog. This doesn't necessarily happen on a conscious level. When an owner wallops the dog under the chin for nipping, or jerks the leash for lunging, and the dog's behavior at that moment subsequently stops, the owner has been reinforced for punishing. "Oh, what I did had the desired effect! My dog stopped misbehaving". That's reinforcement. When any organism receives reinforcement for something, it is going to keep repeating whatever that something is. So an under-skilled, under-educated owner keeps using punishment, in a variety of ways, oftentimes wildly inappropriately, and to increasingly harsher degrees. For this reason alone I advise owners to avoid using punishment in training. It is way too easy to misuse it, oftentimes without even knowing it.
Why Millan is so popular is still a bit of a mystery to me. Surely there is some of that ol' Hollywood magic having an effect on audiences. Also, uneducated dog owners who don't truly understand what it is Millan does, or know that there are other, kinder options, see Millan as a true magician with dogs. Perhaps lack of obvious alternative resources are part of the problem. You could fill a bookcase and then some with all the positive reinforcement-based training books out there. And spend days pouring over research material proving why R+ works and is a better choice. Perhaps us R+ trainers aren't doing a good enough job promoting ourselves and the work we do.
Millan is front and center, making dog training sexy, and touting his calm, assertive energy on national TV and getting rich off of misleading and dangerous advice. This, to me, is unacceptable. The pain Millan inflicts upon dogs is unacceptable. And promotion of these archaic and harmful techniques is unacceptable. I hope other trainers will join me in speaking out against inhumane training practices and work even harder to promote kindness in dog training. ~
I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT EVERYONE HAS TO SAY ABOUT THIS LOL THERE FAVORITE MISTER CESAR MILAN GETTING BASHED :Insanity:
Cesar's Way? NO WAY!
Why I dislike The Dog Whisperer
by Mary Harwelik * www.peaceablecanines.com
As a professional dog trainer, I am often asked what my opinion is of the program "The Dog Whisperer" and if I "like" Cesar Millan. Well, I do not know Mr. Millan so I have no opinion of him, personally. However, I most assuredly do NOT like his show or the training techniques he uses and promotes. To sum up my opinion: the techniques Millan uses are outdated, overly harsh, borderline cruel (if not outright cruel), dangerous and can cause side-effects sometimes worse than the original behavior problem they were supposed to solve.
That's the shorthand version! But WHY do I have this opinion?
Although I am now a trainer who avoids using pain in training and focuses on using positive reinforcement, this wasn't always so. When I trained my first dog 20 years ago, pain and choke chains were the name of the dog training game. This is how trainers dealt with dogs. In fact, the "miraculous", "innovative" and "unique" methods Millan uses to "rehabilitate" dogs are old hat to crossover trainers such as myself. In fact, they'd be down right yawn-worthy - if only they didn't cause so much pain and discomfort to dogs and damage to the human-dog relationship.
Millan uses techniques that have been around since the early 1900s, the Dawn of Dog Training. These techniques cause pain and are meant to intimidate dogs; Millan is a skilled handler and an expert at using these techniques and can cause a dog to physically and emotionally shut down in a relatively short period of time - effectively eliminating the display of bad behavior. But certainly not addressing the root cause, nor teaching the dog a new, better way to behave.
I am in a unique position to speak out against Cesar Millan because I used the same techniques he uses for many years before I 'crossed over' to a kinder, more effective method based on newer research and a better understanding of how organisms learn. In the past, I've done alpha rollovers, scruff shakes, I've strung dogs up and jerked them around. I've used intimidation and caused fear to get a dog to stop reacting - just like Millan currently does. When I watch Millan's show, I cringe. Not only because I recognize the real fear and distress exhibited in the faces of the dogs as he is working with them, but because I have been on the delivering end of that leash and have caused the same fear and distress. And I know what comes after the fact - generalized fear and aggression, distrust of the owner, lack of enthusiasm.
But The Dog Whisperer production team cleans up the method Millan employs, presents it in a nice package. The footage on the program shows only the most mild of corrections, with camera people seemingly conveniently cutting away at certain times - perhaps to avoid showing growls, bites, or more obviously harsh corrections. The viewer is left with a strong impression - hopeless cases, dogs on the edge, saved from damnation by the magic of Cesar Millan. In he walks, with a smile, a wink, and a ready explanation for all he does to dogs. He's not flooding, he's "making the dog face his fear"; that's not physical force and intimidation, it's "creating calm, submissive energy in the dog". And the old excuse used for everything from inter-dog aggression to ball obsession - "the dog is dominant". In fact, perhaps the most dangerous thing about Millan are his euphemisms and the visual misrepresentation on the program of what exactly it is he's doing to dogs.
Millan talks of "energy" as if it was some mystical, magical force that he exudes to get dogs into a "calm, submissive" state. Those who understand what Millan is doing know that the real words of the day are "intimidation" and "flooding" - Millan uses physical force and pain to get a dog to "submit" and a behavioral technique called flooding to overwhelm dogs into a state of complete mental shutdown.
In one episode I viewed, a reactive Bulldog got jerked then kicked with the sole of Millan's shoe in an effort to get him under control. This happened over and over again. "I am not kicking him!" Millan clarifies, "it is never okay to kick a dog!" Apparently it's okay as long as you don't call it kicking. What sort of message is Millan sending to dog owners? Make no mistake, what Millan does is painful and causes fear and stress, regardless of the words he uses to mislead dog owners; and regardless of what fancy editing would lead you to believe.
But it sure looks impressive, don't it?
Dog owners who watch The Dog Whisperer and are impressed by Millan's quick-fix techniques fail to realize that serious dog behavior problems are not fixed in the approximately 15-minutes of airtime each case gets during the 60-minute program. There is also little if any follow-up to the cases presented. So while footage of a Before Cesar dog reacting wildly and causing mayhem stands in stark comparison to the After Cesar shots in the same show, the viewer doesn't see the long-term effects of Millan's techniques. Was the dog actually rehabilitated? Was the owner able to replicate the techniques used to maintain the results? Did the dog get better, worse, or...?
Cesar Millan is receiving a lot of publicity, much of it negative, due to the fact that he's a Hollywood trainer with his own TV show and an excellent PR team. In actuality, many trainers use methods similar to Millan's in dog training (remember, the techniques Millan uses have been around for a very long time). They just aren't in the spotlight. There really is nothing unique about Millan or what he does. He's a classic case of right person, right time, and right team backing him. This isn't about skill or unique ability. Charisma and publicity go a long way in Hollywood. And dog owners so enamored with Millan need to recognize this. There are far more gifted, kinder, more qualified trainer trainers and behaviorists out there. And better methods.
What about these better methods?
Positive reinforcement-based training that minimizes or eliminates the use of pain and intimidation in training has become very popular, especially over the past ten or fifteen years. Behaviorists have presented research demonstrating that POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT (R+) is an effective, powerful way to alter behavior and change mindset without instilling fear, causing pain, or producing troublesome side effects. More and more dog trainers are using these methods to teach dogs new behaviors and eliminate old, bad behaviors. Dogs taught through use of R+ actually learn new behaviors and the emotional issues causing problem behavior to manifest in the first place are eliminated and replaced with a new, healthier emotional state. The trainers using and promoting these methods have impressive backgrounds as scientists and authors/lecturers. Some of these more popular trainers (and personal heroes of mine) include: Karen Pryor, Gary Wilkes, Ian Dunbar, Ken Ramirez, Kathy Sdao, Jean Donaldson, Bob Bailey & Marian Breland-Bailey, and many others.
(Remember, Millan has NO real credentials. He is referred to as a behaviorist yet holds no academic degrees nor certifications.)
The method that Millan uses employs NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT (R-) and POSITIVE PUNISHMENT (P+) in training. R- uses pain/discomfort to teach a dog something new - when Millan jerks a dog into heel position, he is using R-. P+ uses pain or another unpleasant thing to stop unwanted behavior. Pinning a dog to the ground, choking him or kicking/hitting to stop aggression is P+. Since Millan describes himself not as a dog trainer but a rehabilitator, most of what he does involves STOPPING behavior, not teaching new behavior. So P+ is mainly what he uses when he works with dogs. P+ does not teach a dog a new way to behave, it suppresses behavior that is already happening. Sometimes, new or worse behavior manifests as a result of this suppression. Dogs shut down emotionally, and exhibit something called "learned helplessness" - they learn they are unable to prevent or change something in their environment and so simply stop reacting. They exhibit stress, fear, or increased aggression. R- and P+ oftentimes cause a dog to redirect aggression onto its handler. So a dog that is pinned down in response to an aggressive outburst directed at another dog suddenly turns and bites his owner instead. Now there are two problems instead of just one.
And although "dominance" is Millan's excuse for everything a dog does wrong, there are a variety of reasons a dog may act out in an aggressive or defiant way - usually fear and/or confusion are the main causes. Using pain or force to get an aggressive or fearful dog under control can seriously backfire.
When you are skilled at using positive punishment (as Millan is), the instant results can be impressive. A wildly reactive dog can be subdued into a stressed but unreactive state in mere minutes. Has any real learning taken place? Most likely nothing more than a learned fear of the punisher. Or maybe an inadvertent conditioning which leads the dog to believe that the presence of certain things in the environment are an indicator that he is about to experience pain (this can later cause extreme reactivity and increased aggression directed at new things in the environment). So an owner using punishment might see instant results, and be inclined to use punishment again. When the behavior worsens later or new behavior pops up down the line, the owner doesn't believe that the technique is at fault, obviously the punishment just wasn't administered strongly enough. So the dog experiences harsher treatment, and a downward spiral of worsened behavior/harsher punishment occurs.
Perhaps most frightening is that the person doing the punishing is actually experiencing reinforcement for inflicting pain on a dog. This doesn't necessarily happen on a conscious level. When an owner wallops the dog under the chin for nipping, or jerks the leash for lunging, and the dog's behavior at that moment subsequently stops, the owner has been reinforced for punishing. "Oh, what I did had the desired effect! My dog stopped misbehaving". That's reinforcement. When any organism receives reinforcement for something, it is going to keep repeating whatever that something is. So an under-skilled, under-educated owner keeps using punishment, in a variety of ways, oftentimes wildly inappropriately, and to increasingly harsher degrees. For this reason alone I advise owners to avoid using punishment in training. It is way too easy to misuse it, oftentimes without even knowing it.
Why Millan is so popular is still a bit of a mystery to me. Surely there is some of that ol' Hollywood magic having an effect on audiences. Also, uneducated dog owners who don't truly understand what it is Millan does, or know that there are other, kinder options, see Millan as a true magician with dogs. Perhaps lack of obvious alternative resources are part of the problem. You could fill a bookcase and then some with all the positive reinforcement-based training books out there. And spend days pouring over research material proving why R+ works and is a better choice. Perhaps us R+ trainers aren't doing a good enough job promoting ourselves and the work we do.
Millan is front and center, making dog training sexy, and touting his calm, assertive energy on national TV and getting rich off of misleading and dangerous advice. This, to me, is unacceptable. The pain Millan inflicts upon dogs is unacceptable. And promotion of these archaic and harmful techniques is unacceptable. I hope other trainers will join me in speaking out against inhumane training practices and work even harder to promote kindness in dog training. ~
I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT EVERYONE HAS TO SAY ABOUT THIS LOL THERE FAVORITE MISTER CESAR MILAN GETTING BASHED :Insanity:
Burly!!
