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Post by Tammi21 on Feb 24, 2009 16:06:30 GMT -5
On a forum that I left a few months back Cersar Millan was scoffed about by most of the members. I myself had never seen his show because I don’t have cable. But it seemed to me that what they were complaining about didn’t sound too fair from NILIF. I have been reading a book of his and I think it’s great. It has been highlighting some of the problems that I have with my dogs and I suddenly see things that I have been doing wrong. So I was wondering what everyone else thought of him. I would have put this in debate but I don’t really want to debate I just wanted to know what everyone else thinks. Later, Tammi.
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Post by Aussienot on Feb 25, 2009 16:58:59 GMT -5
This is currently a hot topic in Australia, because CM is doing live shows here and there may be a aussie tv series in the works. I've watched the show and read his book, and I agree with most of his philosophy and support about 80% of his tactics.
If you are not 100 percent positive, you are the enemy to some R+ zealots. With his high profile CM cops a lot of flack. He is not purely positive, and he does support pack theory and dominant dog ideas. These are the main complaint from R+ trainers.
They say that the only thing dog trainers agree on is that everyone else is doing it wrong. For example, I don't agree with his treatment of fear cases on the show. He treats every fear case with flooding - (repeated forced exposure). Flooding is a 'double or nothing' tactic. It will either cure the problem instantly or forever entrench the problem as a phobia. On his show it always works.
Then one day it dawned on me that he wouldn't treat every fear problem with flooding when he trains privately. It's just a television strategy! Desensitization is slow, progress is incremental and the process is boring. It would be lousy television. That's why only dramatically successful flooding cases make it to air. (At least I hope so.)
Where I think he excels and has helped dogs and owners enormously is getting the message across that dogs should be treated like dogs. They are not fur kids.
He explains dog behavior and communication is ways that the average pet owner can understand. He delivers clear and simple leadership strategies. He doesn't let the owners blame the dog. He makes owners take responsibility for providing the exercise and training that every dog needs. For that I applaud him.
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Post by Richard on Feb 28, 2009 10:46:59 GMT -5
I think CM is good for the dog training world because he does believe in the pack mentality and pack leader. At Casa Del Sheppy, we don't subscribe to all of his teachings but he's in the ballpark and hitting a home run on most of them.
What he also does, as Aussie noted, is to tell people that they are in charge, not the dog. He's shown time after time where dog owners have failed to do any training, set boundaries or even properly exercise their dogs so what you end up with is a bossy, out of control dog running the house.
This can't happen in a one hour show. It's not the dog who takes time to fix it's the human counterpart - getting through that last 1/4" of skull can take a long time with some people. Others realize, once it's made clear that there is a better way, their errors and move forward so both they and their dogs have a much better relationship.
Of course, I'm always interested when I see him working with GSD's and their owners on his TV show cuz a lot of times, the owners have not laid the proper ground work for a sheppy (alpha dog, pack mentality, ground rules) but once CM shows them how it's done you see a change in how the owners look at their sheppy and how the sheppy responds to the new pack leader.
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Post by promethean on Apr 10, 2009 22:29:10 GMT -5
He's a poser in my opinion. You don't even have to see his methods. If you simply pay attention to his explanations it is clear that he has no idea what he's talking about. It almost seems that he intentionally avoids biology, psychology, and animal cognition books
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Post by sibemom on May 8, 2009 7:24:11 GMT -5
Poser hey? Well people in glass houses should not throw stones! You say he ignores bilology What is it about treat a dog like a dog you don't understand? I think just because he does not have a formal degree people are jealous of him because of how far he has come. Well I don't agree with everything he does either. Common sense goes a long way in training dogs. This man has a ton of common sense and that is very refreshing ;D
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Post by sibemom on May 8, 2009 7:30:51 GMT -5
Oh P.S. now understand this is just MHO, but to depict your dog in your avitar the way you have leaves me to wonder who the poser is. My dog is trained in Schutzhund, but no way would I post a picture like that on a public forum. This reminds me of someone needing an ego boost
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Post by Aussienot on Jul 29, 2009 19:07:06 GMT -5
Maybe should retitle this Lunatics and Cesar Millan. Cesar donated $1 from every ticket sold on his Australian tour to the Animal Welfare League. It totaled over $18,000. I attend his show in Sydney for free in return for organising the volunteers to help run the show. I got to pick the audience submitted tickets for the Q & A session for the gold ticket holders after the main show. We also met him and hung around with him backstage for a few hours before and after the show. He's a bit like a human Malinois, full-on, animated and committed. He is 100% authentic - manic, funny and dedicated to making humans understand dogs better. He doesn't have a public persona and private persona. The way he acts on the show is how he really is in person, and in person he's even more so. I'm on his left and slightly behind him.
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Post by willow on Aug 3, 2009 11:50:57 GMT -5
Aussie, great picture of you and "your pack" and cesar. I like him as a person, and most of his training methods very much too. It sure beats the "ignor the bad behavior, reward the good" that most use today. When you go back as far as I do in training, you recognize that he is using methods we "cut our teeth on", as the saying goes. We also know that no one human is perfect and that goes for Cesar too. When he says, "No dog is too much for me to handle..." that may be true, however, that does not mean that he can rehabilitate every dog so that it can be re-homed. That's why he has so many at his facility, and I don't think there is a trainer out there who has a 100% success rate...maybe not even a 90% no matter which method(s) they use, but I have not checked statistics, if they even exist. In spite of that, I do think that right now he is the best t.v. trainer out there. loey
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