Cesar on the morning news

[datista]

I don't know if anyone else caught Cesar Millan on the morning news. I wouldn't have, as I planned to sleep in this lovely Saturday morning. However, the puppy is not yet with the program. She does not feel sleeping in is a good thing, and holding it more than a few minutes after she wakes up is beyond her capabilities, but at least she will cry

Comments

[papilio_luna]

That "tsst" noise irritates the crap out of me. Not just the sound of it but the bizarre meanings that he and others ascribe to it. It is a fairly sharp noise, so any animal is at least going to look for the source of it more often than not, but god I've heard so many people imply it's a magical noise that communicates information to the dog. How?! How would a dog know what this noise-a noise that dogs are not capable of making themselves-means? Unless, of course, you condition a dog to know "this sound means that in a second, you are going to get punished, unless you throw me some sort of appeasement signal."

I was walking my dogs a couple days ago and there's a house that has a beagle and some small terrier that are often outside on tie-outs. Being two vocal breeds of dog, they tend to bark a lot when we walk by. The other day, though, their owner came out when they started barking and... started spraying compressed air at them. Not close enough to them that they'd feel the air, but I guess for the noise that it makes? Which of course interrupted their barking for a second so they could look for the source of the sound. Did she reward them at that point? Or recall them to bring them back into the house if their barking was bothering her so much? Nope. So they started barking again, and she sprayed the can again and they stopped for a second again and then started barking again. Rise, repeat. You'd think that people would get the idea fairly quickly that just making a noise at your dog only interrupts them for a second, until of course they get so used to that noise that they start ignoring it completely. It's not training and it bugs the crap out of me that so many people (even trainers!) think that it is.