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That dog had been through 3 trainers before the owners contacted Cesar. Lucky for the dog that Cesar decided to keep her.
Aggressive dogs like that one are not getting cooed over and handled gently by a trainer especially if you send it off for board and train. Same thing with horses.
That dog had been through 3 trainers before the owners contacted Cesar. Lucky for the dog that Cesar decided to keep her.
Aggressive dogs like that one are not getting cooed over and handled gently by a trainer especially if you send it off for board and train. Same thing with horses.
Where exactly do you come by your vast knowledge of dog behavior, learning theory, and training methods?
There is a pretty broad spectrum of trainers ranging from having minimal skill and less experience to having a full skill-set and diagnostic toolbox from having apprenticed and/or worked with skilled trainers. So, the number of trainers this poor pup had been through is really irrelevant unless you specifically know what their methodology and skill-set was. We don't know the history of this dog, how it was originally trained, or what the triggers were. What I do know is that any nitwit can go buy a leash and call themselves a trainer, so that in and of itself is pretty meaningless.
The dog clearly has problems NOW, but without having a full history, and knowing context and triggers, it is simplistic to say that the dog is "crazy".
Take one mildly reactive pup, add no real training, add humans who are hell-bent on teaching the dog who is boss, and you potentially end up with a dog who has real issues.
I completely fail to understand how a so-called expert can taunt, bully, and make a dog feel so threatened it feels it has no option but to bite, and we call the dog crazy. Go figure. If this is the type of "training" this dog has had throughout its life no wonder it is messed up.
The dog here isn't acting in isolation; there is a human component, and I find it incomprehensible that we place the complete burden of how the dog is acting on the dog rather than on the human who is taunting him. Not ok, especially since we humans are supposedly the rational ones with the big brains.
I also find it concerning that some of the posters who have commented here, who ostensibly love dogs are willing to take this video at face value and condemn the dog outright. Even if the dog actually IS aggressive, which we don't know, and wouldn't know without a full workup by a reputable behaviorist, then compassion instead of condemnation might be a more worthy path to take.
Last edited by twelvepaw; 08-17-2015 at 08:01 PM..
I think there is a big issue associated with the circumstance of the bite that hasn't been addressed. Apparently this is the first meeting between Millan and the dog. The dog didn't know him and was afraid of him. If the dog had more experience with him, it might not have the fear. Without the dog's fear of Millan, his technique would have a better chance of success.
I think in these shows there's a perceived need for quick results. Sometimes time is the most important factor is changing a dog's behavior. That doesn't lend itself to TV episodes.
I think there is a big issue associated with the circumstance of the bite that hasn't been addressed. Apparently this is the first meeting between Millan and the dog. The dog didn't know him and was afraid of him. If the dog had more experience with him, it might not have the fear. Without the dog's fear of Millan, his technique would have a better chance of success.
I think in these shows there's a perceived need for quick results. Sometimes time is the most important factor is changing a dog's behavior. That doesn't lend itself to TV episodes.
Quick results for television ratings is not something that a good dog trainer or behaviourist would employ. What is important is employing appropriate training methods to lead to a non-reactive, stable dog. If the training of a dog with behavioural issues is rushed for any reason, then a new trainer should be employed. Such cases take time to work through...the stronger the fear, the more time may be needed.
From what was shown in this episode, I understand that Cesar was attempting to 'claim' the food dish, but the methods employed will not give one the desired result. What is the desired result? Ultimately it would be for the dog to no longer threaten and/or bite, but overall, the desired result should be training the dog to learn that there is nothing to fear. Remove the fear, and you remove the reaction - threatening, growling, biting. For this dog, it would not matter if the dog had met Cesar before or not; she had displayed the same actions toward her owners in the past.
Cesar was using a continuous state of threat toward a fearful dog. Staring down the dog is a threat. Advancing is a threat. Punching or firm pushing away when the dog is standing ground is a threat. All of his actions were reinforcing the dog's thinking that 'I fear someone will take my food...I need to protect it' and were strengthening that fear. Even if one were to get the dog to eventually not attack around food, she would be unpredictable if the fear was still there, and the potential to trust her to not do this behaviour again would always be present. It's vitally important to remove the psychological source that triggers the dog's action, not just teach them to submit to dominance.
If you pay attention to the dog's initial reactions as Cesar first began to work with her, she was pushed, and pushed, and pushed. She gave clear body signals indicating her discomfort. It was only when the perceived threat (Cesar's continued advances) did not let up, and when she'd been pushed past her limit, that the dog actually bit. This is not the sign of a dog who is crazy or cannot be trained without force; imo, it is the sign of a dog who was withholding her reaction for as long as she could, until she was pushed too far. At the beginning of the episode they showed the dog's personality as she interacted with her owners, as well as when she was around the baby...her personality shone through as very playful and loveable. This is not a true aggressive dog; this dog is a fear biter with resource guarding issues. The methods employed for a dog with this type of personality and issues were very bad. Keep pushing such a dog and you take a chance of turning them into a highly aggressive dog who cannot trust anyone, and who bite aggressively, and often unprovoked.
I don't really subscribe to any particular trainer as the be-all and end-all, but generally pick and choose among the practices of many trainers for what will fit a particular dog.
Tamar Geller has an interesting method in which she takes the food bowl away and puts in a high-value treat while the dog is eating its dinner at various intervals. I think this is more effective for keeping a dog from BECOMING food reactive, but it's a pretty logical method. The dog begins to think meal interruptions are a happy thing.
Honestly, I don't understand why Cesar wouldn't have started with having the owners hand-feed the dog. I'm not gonna watch the episode, because Cesar annoys the bejesus out of me, but this has always been a good starting point in my opinion. Or you make the dog work for its dinner. My roommate frequently has her dogs doing tricks for their kibble at dinnertime. It exercises them and reminds them that she is the one in charge. From there you can work up to larger amounts of food given at one time.
I'm largely self-taught after reading a lot of dog training books, working with dogs from the time I was a child and working with a variety of trainers. What I've found most useful with dogs who have aggression issues of any kind is to change the context and the parameters.
The last thing I would ever do to break a dog of food aggression would be to have a virtual stranger walk up to the dog mid-meal. That's something to be worked up to.
With a dog with food aggression, you feed it differently so that it doesn't feel it has anything to defend. Hand-feeding and playing the "look away" game are helpful. (By "Look away" game, I mean you hold food in one hand and only reward the dog when it looks at your empty hand.) Also, hiding the food in small increments and then helping the dog to find it is a good practice for food aggression. The dog then sees you as a team member in getting its dinner.
Aggression is USUALLY a contextual thing. When I took in my biting border collie, who had attacked many people, I removed him from his territory. He came to live in my condo with me, with no yard to defend. He had only my condo, where I was the undisputed alpha. When I was gone, he was in his crate. The only people who had keys were people who had been introduced to him and recognized as "alternate alphas." After seven years of being a "vicious" yard dog, he never so much as snapped at another human being for the last decade of his life. It was such a simple solution. He was fine off-leash as well because he didn't consider any of the areas we went to for our hikes or playtime to be his own territory. He understood he was a guest and that I was his leader.
Now, I also know a young couple that had a rescue dog that would randomly, without rhyme or reason, attack people. There was no consistency in the attacks and they consulted multiple behaviorists to find out what was wrong. The unanimous decision was basically the dog had the equivalent of a personality disorder. It happens, but it's rare. They put the dog down, which was devastating to them. He was a lovely dog who would turn on a dime. But you almost never see that.
I don't really subscribe to any particular trainer as the be-all and end-all, but generally pick and choose among the practices of many trainers for what will fit a particular dog.
Tamar Geller has an interesting method in which she takes the food bowl away and puts in a high-value treat while the dog is eating its dinner at various intervals. I think this is more effective for keeping a dog from BECOMING food reactive, but it's a pretty logical method. The dog begins to think meal interruptions are a happy thing.
Honestly, I don't understand why Cesar wouldn't have started with having the owners hand-feed the dog. I'm not gonna watch the episode, because Cesar annoys the bejesus out of me, but this has always been a good starting point in my opinion. Or you make the dog work for its dinner. My roommate frequently has her dogs doing tricks for their kibble at dinnertime. It exercises them and reminds them that she is the one in charge. From there you can work up to larger amounts of food given at one time.
I'm largely self-taught after reading a lot of dog training books, working with dogs from the time I was a child and working with a variety of trainers. What I've found most useful with dogs who have aggression issues of any kind is to change the context and the parameters.
The last thing I would ever do to break a dog of food aggression would be to have a virtual stranger walk up to the dog mid-meal. That's something to be worked up to.
With a dog with food aggression, you feed it differently so that it doesn't feel it has anything to defend. Hand-feeding and playing the "look away" game are helpful. (By "Look away" game, I mean you hold food in one hand and only reward the dog when it looks at your empty hand.) Also, hiding the food in small increments and then helping the dog to find it is a good practice for food aggression. The dog then sees you as a team member in getting its dinner.
Aggression is USUALLY a contextual thing. When I took in my biting border collie, who had attacked many people, I removed him from his territory. He came to live in my condo with me, with no yard to defend. He had only my condo, where I was the undisputed alpha. When I was gone, he was in his crate. The only people who had keys were people who had been introduced to him and recognized as "alternate alphas." After seven years of being a "vicious" yard dog, he never so much as snapped at another human being for the last decade of his life. It was such a simple solution. He was fine off-leash as well because he didn't consider any of the areas we went to for our hikes or playtime to be his own territory. He understood he was a guest and that I was his leader.
Now, I also know a young couple that had a rescue dog that would randomly, without rhyme or reason, attack people. There was no consistency in the attacks and they consulted multiple behaviorists to find out what was wrong. The unanimous decision was basically the dog had the equivalent of a personality disorder. It happens, but it's rare. They put the dog down, which was devastating to them. He was a lovely dog who would turn on a dime. But you almost never see that.
I did the high-value treat in the dish with my dog (also a border collie, btw), and found it did help somewhat. But I couldn't casually walk by and drop the treat in the dish, as some trainers will recommend, since the food dropping into the dish - even when he could see I was going to drop it, and despite it not falling far - would startle him and make him even more nervous. A lot of people have had pretty good success with this method though, as well as implementing the NILF rule (Nothing In Life is Free). Hand feeding my dog got me nowhere, though. And since every dog is different, what works with one dog may not work for another. It's a matter of trying different methods to see what clicks with that particular animal.
One thing I found that went a long way with my dog was introducing a brake-fast dish. The method of spreading food out on the floor didn't work with my guy, as he'd just charge the food that was on the floor and try to eat it all as quickly as possible. (If you see the dog in the video eating out of her dish, she is frantically trying to wolf all of the food down; that's the way my dog used to eat.) Anyway, once I implemented the brake-fast dish, which is designed to slow down a dog who practically inhales its food, Izzy was forced to eat slowly...and as a result, he started to learn to relax when eating. (As an aside, my dog literally did eat without chewing when he was a pup, he was cram it all in so quickly. One time at my sister's house he managed to find and chew a hole in an unopened bag of dog food in the basement. By the time I discovered him, he was so bloated that he looked like he'd swallowed a basketball. At the emergency vet the x-ray showed that his stomach was saturated with unchewed kibble...it looked like an x-ray of a gumball machine.)
Not sure if this was already mentioned, but another thing I think should always be explored if a dog is displaying aggressive behaviour, esp. if it is new, is to have a thorough vet check done. Sometimes medical conditions can trigger odd behaviour in dogs. And sometimes even just the type of food they're being fed can be the trigger. There's a lot of things to consider, and often a combination of techniques, sometimes with food modification and veterinary consultation, can go a long way to fixing the problem. Then there are some dogs that simply cannot be helped because of a deep psychological disorder, or a medical issue that cannot be resolved, though as you mentioned, it is rare.
[quote=twelvepaw;40860150]Where exactly do you come by your vast knowledge of dog behavior, learning theory, and training methods?
There is a pretty broad spectrum of trainers ranging from having minimal skill and less experience to having a full skill-set and diagnostic toolbox from having apprenticed and/or worked with skilled trainers. So, the number of trainers this poor pup had been through is really irrelevant unless you specifically know what their methodology and skill-set was. We don't know the history of this dog, how it was originally trained, or what the triggers were. What I do know is that any nitwit can go buy a leash and call themselves a trainer, so that in and of itself is pretty meaningless.
The dog clearly has problems NOW, but without having a full history, and knowing context and triggers, it is simplistic to say that the dog is "crazy".
Take one mildly reactive pup, add no real training, add humans who are hell-bent on teaching the dog who is boss, and you potentially end up with a dog who has real issues.
I completely fail to understand how a so-called expert can taunt, bully, and make a dog feel so threatened it feels it has no option but to bite, and we call the dog crazy. Go figure. If this is the type of "training" this dog has had throughout its life no wonder it is messed up.
The dog here isn't acting in isolation; there is a human component, and I find it incomprehensible that we place the complete burden of how the dog is acting on the dog rather than on the human who is taunting him. Not ok, especially since we humans are supposedly the rational ones with the big brains.
I also find it concerning that some of the posters who have commented here, who ostensibly love dogs are willing to take this video at face value and condemn the dog outright. Even if the dog actually IS aggressive, which we don't know, and wouldn't know without a full workup by a reputable behaviorist, then compassion instead of condemnation might be a more worthy path to take.[/QUOTE
Do you need names or numbers or what? I dont particularly care what you think I do or dont know. Im telling you what I've seen trainers do. Also did you see the way that dog challenged the owner? If that isnt aggression id like to know what you consider an aggressive dog.
I did the high-value treat in the dish with my dog (also a border collie, btw), and found it did help somewhat. But I couldn't casually walk by and drop the treat in the dish, as some trainers will recommend, since the food dropping into the dish - even when he could see I was going to drop it, and despite it not falling far - would startle him and make him even more nervous. A lot of people have had pretty good success with this method though, as well as implementing the NILF rule (Nothing In Life is Free). Hand feeding my dog got me nowhere, though. And since every dog is different, what works with one dog may not work for another. It's a matter of trying different methods to see what clicks with that particular animal.
One thing I found that went a long way with my dog was introducing a brake-fast dish. The method of spreading food out on the floor didn't work with my guy, as he'd just charge the food that was on the floor and try to eat it all as quickly as possible. (If you see the dog in the video eating out of her dish, she is frantically trying to wolf all of the food down; that's the way my dog used to eat.) Anyway, once I implemented the brake-fast dish, which is designed to slow down a dog who practically inhales its food, Izzy was forced to eat slowly...and as a result, he started to learn to relax when eating. (As an aside, my dog literally did eat without chewing when he was a pup, he was cram it all in so quickly. One time at my sister's house he managed to find and chew a hole in an unopened bag of dog food in the basement. By the time I discovered him, he was so bloated that he looked like he'd swallowed a basketball. At the emergency vet the x-ray showed that his stomach was saturated with unchewed kibble...it looked like an x-ray of a gumball machine.)
Not sure if this was already mentioned, but another thing I think should always be explored if a dog is displaying aggressive behaviour, esp. if it is new, is to have a thorough vet check done. Sometimes medical conditions can trigger odd behaviour in dogs. And sometimes even just the type of food they're being fed can be the trigger. There's a lot of things to consider, and often a combination of techniques, sometimes with food modification and veterinary consultation, can go a long way to fixing the problem. Then there are some dogs that simply cannot be helped because of a deep psychological disorder, or a medical issue that cannot be resolved, though as you mentioned, it is rare.
I use a puzzle bowl too - it's in a big spiral shape and slows up my Catahoula. I hadn't thought about it reducing food aggression - I was just worried about the crazy bastard bloating himself or choking to death. But yeah, it changes the context.
With him, anything that triggers his pleasure centers sends him through the roof. Eating and drinking become frantic things. Chasing the ball turns into a frenzy. Visits from his favorite people result in yodeling and general lunacy. He's actually a really good, calm dog most of the time, but when that switch gets flipped, Katie bar the door! He's gonna make a great flyball dog...
Crazy or not, that dog told him to back off 1000 different ways.
In fact, I think crazy would involved in unprovoked bite. Not one where the dog told you 50 times not to get over there.
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