Dog method ‘dangerous’
Dog training methods used in a popular TV show are damaging, experts say.
Cesar to the Rescue, on Choice TV, features Cesar Millan, a dog trainer whose philosophy is based on the dominance theory.
‘‘The dogs [on the show] are being forced into situations where the behaviours are triggered, and then people try to treat the reaction of the dog in that state,’’ said Mark Weaver, president of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers New Zealand.
‘‘It’s similar to if you have a fear of spiders and if you were locked in a room full of spiders. You have succeeded in getting near a spider, but it hasn’t addressed the root fear, and has not taken any note of your emotional wellbeing.’’
Weaver, who works with rescue dogs, said he saw the results of some of these training methods. ‘‘It looks good for TV because it’s confrontational and you get to see a result, but in the real world it can lead to fear and aggression.’’
Dogs trained this way could become dangerous to their owners, he said. The methods used could lead to situations that risked injury to dogs and their owners, could cause psychological damage, and were ‘‘extremely dangerous’’.
‘‘That’s why you get so many cases of a dog biting, a family pet that’s never done it before. Every dog has its breaking point.’’
Weaver recalled a scene on the show where a woman was encouraged to touch a reticent dog’s paws ‘‘and the dog is growling’’.
Dogs show discomfort in a lot of subtle ways. They might start licking their lips or panting, then it goes up the scale. They’ll try and move away, and if they can’t, they will roll over to show they’re not a threat – and then they start to growl.’’
Owners needed to read dogs better so they could respect what the animals were telling them, Weaver said.
‘‘It’s not dissimilar to human behaviour. If you’re teaching a child to write and they make a mistake, you don’t slap them around the head with a ruler. You make a change and you try again.’’
Nelson dog trainer Vikki Pickering said the show made her cringe. ‘‘If you look at the body language of the dogs in the show, they look stressed.’’
One of the tactics Millan used with dogs was pinning them to the ground, Pickering said. ‘‘If you pin a dog to the ground and it stops doing the behaviour, you’re just suppressing the behaviour, because the dog finds it punishing. It just makes the dog scared of you.’’
Pickering said she sometimes met owners who talked about being the pack leader. However, more owners were coming around to the science of positive reinforcement.
Animal behaviourist and dog trainer Mark Vette said the pack theory came out of a study of captive wolves.
‘‘When you have big adults in zoo-formed packs, you get a much more aggressive pack. They can’t get out of the pack, so there’s higher levels of aggression.’’
Studies of wolves in the wild showed something quite different, Vette said. ‘‘They live in families. You want to think of dad being the big dominant one that beats up the kids, but that’s not how it works.’’ Instead, wolves used mediation and posture to exert control.
While Millan’s techniques might make good television, they did not align with up-to-date knowledge about dog training and behaviour, Vette said. ‘‘Cesar Millan . . . has contributed to our understanding, but his methodology is considered archaic.’’
Millan did not reply to a request for comment before deadline.