Dear family,
I know it's hard for you to get used to the idea that I am now an expert on animals and not your little girl any more, but don't continue to argue with me about whether I should hire Cesar Millan to help with my suddenly dog-aggressive Mexican street mutt. The vast majority of my profession hates him. After watching his show myself I have little respect for him at all.
For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh9YOyM2TAk
1) Don't knowingly take an aggressive dog and then KICK him in the abdomen to re-direct his attention.
2) Don't purposefully plan to train an aggressive dog with a choke collar as your only tool, you overconfident twit. Instead, consider a basket muzzle, and then perhaps you won't end up needing to strangle the dog in order to protect yourself from being bitten.
3) I'm sorry, but an erection is not occurring because the dog is trying to be 'dominant.' This is a classic case of fear aggression, and that dog was just put into a hypoxic state by being strangled for a few minutes straight. Note his tongue is purple and he is gasping for air. Anyone with a handle on physiology understands this is because of circulating catecholamines.
4) No, the dog is not relaxed by the end of that episode. He is catatonic. See how you're feeling after being choked for 2 minutes straight; you'd probably also be lying on the pavement with your eyes closed.
This is only one example of how Millan makes me furious. Yes, he espouses SOME very good training techniques, but in other ways he has set back the field of animal behavior 25 years or so with his dominance theory. I think he is an asshole, and I don't want his help, thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Your daughter/niece
p.s. I am only posting this here because I basically have nowhere else to express my frustration about this topic. People are so passionately for or against this asshole that it almost inevitably results in a heated discussion, so facebook is OUT. :-)
For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh9YOyM2TAk
1) Don't knowingly take an aggressive dog and then KICK him in the abdomen to re-direct his attention.
2) Don't purposefully plan to train an aggressive dog with a choke collar as your only tool, you overconfident twit. Instead, consider a basket muzzle, and then perhaps you won't end up needing to strangle the dog in order to protect yourself from being bitten.
3) I'm sorry, but an erection is not occurring because the dog is trying to be 'dominant.' This is a classic case of fear aggression, and that dog was just put into a hypoxic state by being strangled for a few minutes straight. Note his tongue is purple and he is gasping for air. Anyone with a handle on physiology understands this is because of circulating catecholamines.
4) No, the dog is not relaxed by the end of that episode. He is catatonic. See how you're feeling after being choked for 2 minutes straight; you'd probably also be lying on the pavement with your eyes closed.
This is only one example of how Millan makes me furious. Yes, he espouses SOME very good training techniques, but in other ways he has set back the field of animal behavior 25 years or so with his dominance theory. I think he is an asshole, and I don't want his help, thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Your daughter/niece
p.s. I am only posting this here because I basically have nowhere else to express my frustration about this topic. People are so passionately for or against this asshole that it almost inevitably results in a heated discussion, so facebook is OUT. :-)