Excellent. Worth Book marking!

[Cassidy's Mom]

Originally Posted By: ColoradoWhat you (and the Cesar haters around the world) are objecting to are some of his techniques he uses to change behavior once he has figured out what the dog is feeling. I understand your objections. But the article focuses so strongly on those and ignores examples of any other techniques deployed by Cesar that it reads like an emotional-based attack in the guise of something more scientific.

But, see, the reason this article, and others like it, focus so strongly on the objectionable techniques he uses is because it's exactly those things that set him apart from other trainers! He's not doing anything new or revolutionary, he's either using techniques that any other decent dog trainer is also using (that neither he nor they invented, making him solidly mainstream) OR he's alpha rolling and flooding - outdated force methods that are fairly widely discredited by all those other trainers.

I'm not a Cesar hater either. I've seen a few of his shows and I read his book. I think he's done some good by bringing the idea of actually training your dog to the general public, and I agree that most people on the show know NOTHING about training or behavior. They've either created these problems, exacerbated them, or simply allowed them to continue, and pretty much all of them would not need to come to someone like Cesar to "fix" their dog problems if they'd spent some time and effort learing how to train the dog using motivational techniques in the first place.

[Sarah'sSita]

If you remove the CM stuff and look at her, Dr. Yins, explanation it makes more sense. Dominance theory has become the panacea diagnosis far too often; "If you are trained to be a hammer then everything is a nail: Plain and simple from a behavioral standpoint---behaviors that are reinforced, tend to get repeated. The Dal puppy was being a puppy and getting tremendous reinforcement for a behvior--not dominance. Dr. Yin explains this quite clearly.

[Colorado]

Flipping things around here in the order of your post.

Originally Posted By: Cassidys MomI'm not a Cesar hater either. I've seen a few of his shows and I read his book. I think he's done some good by bringing the idea of actually training your dog to the general public, and I agree that most people on the show know NOTHING about training or behavior. They've either created these problems, exacerbated them, or simply allowed them to continue, and pretty much all of them would not need to come to someone like Cesar to "fix" their dog problems if they'd spent some time and effort learing how to train the dog using motivational techniques in the first place.

Yep, here you and I agree. While people on this board would respond to information that "a working dog needs an activity" with "of course they do", a vast majority of dog owners (sadly) would be fascinated by this new nugget of information. Cesar has helped bring basic information like this to a wide audience of people. Is he unique among trainers for having this insight? Of course not. But his show is popular and thus this important information reaches a large number of people.

Originally Posted By: Cassidys MomBut, see, the reason this article, and others like it, focus so strongly on the objectionable techniques he uses is because it's exactly those things that set him apart from other trainers! He's not doing anything new or revolutionary, he's either using techniques that any other decent dog trainer is also using (that neither he nor they invented, making him solidly mainstream) OR he's alpha rolling and flooding - outdated force methods that are fairly widely discredited by all those other trainers.

In some ways, that is my point. He does stuff that many people object to (alpha rolling) but he also does many positive things. To dismiss all those and focus only on the negative is a disservice to the good he has brought to the canine world. For example, his simple message that dogs are not people may be obvious to you or I but not to a vast majority of the U.S. population. So many people anthromophize their dogs with disastrous results, I feel this message is an important one. Yes, someone else besides Cesar could bring thing information to the people but that doesn't diminish the fact that he is successful in doing it.

Originally Posted By: Sarah'sSitaIf you remove the CM stuff and look at her, Dr. Yins, explanation it makes more sense.

Exactly. Some of the content of the article you posted was indeed very interesting. My point was simply that all the "CM is the devil" stuff detracted from the article enough that I found myself surfing elsewhere.