Protest targets ‘Dog Whisperer’
Trainers disagree with his methods, plan ‘quiet protest’ at talk Saturday.
COLUMBUS — The training techniques used by television star Cesar Millan — known as the Dog Whisperer — are criticized as inhumane and misguided by some dog trainers locally and nationally.
“They’re very outdated and pose a danger to the human and the dog,” Columbus trainer Samantha L. Speegle. “He uses prong collars and choke collars, and I’m against anything used to teach a dog that involves pain.”
Millan has built a dog-training empire explaining his “dominance theory” on the National Geographic channel with his show, “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan”; in his magazine, Cesar’s Way; and through a speaking tour that stops at Palace Theatre on Saturday.
Speegle and a handful of other trainers are to be outside the theater before his show distributing pamphlets from the American Veterinary Society of American Behavior that refute the theory. Speegle calls it a “quiet protest” to make sure people attending Millan’s talk understand that many other trainers don’t agree with him.
Asked about the protest earlier this week, Millan said his techniques are “not for everybody” but that “to me, dominance is to give direction and protection.”
Similar protests are expected when Millan spoke Thursday night in Akron and appears Sunday in Cincinnati. Dog trainer Dawn Pribble also plans to be at the Palace protest. She owns the Columbus business Positive Pups and runs the dog-training classes at the Capital Area Humane Society.
“I think there are some situations where Cesar makes dogs afraid, and they don’t learn well when they’re afraid,” she said. “Our main goal is to build relationships between dogs and their owners.”
Dominance theory was used years ago, but studies have found that the techniques increase rather than decrease aggression in dogs, said Jean Donaldson, a dog trainer for more than 30 years.