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Cesar Millan: Not What You Thought - And Alternative Training Tips!

© Written by xxshaelxx and Rikkanna

Cesar Millan. There is much that can be said about the man. There are some good things, and yet there are plenty of bad things as well. Now, this article is not aimed to attack anyone here, I am not trying to anger anyone or spark up any kind of pointless debates, but I am writing this to hopefully make clear some of the things that the trainer does wrong with dogs, and the last part of the article holds some very valuable, positive training methods you could follow instead, written by our very own Rikkanna, complete with examples from her own experience with training.

Cesar Millan has some good philosophies, such as exercising dogs enough to where they're not terrors around the house, or having a calm, relaxed relationship with your dog. He is also a huge advocate for adoption, and pit bulls, and not getting animals if it isn't right for you. We all know those are huge advantages in a public figure, because it's education we need to make people understand the problems that are out there in the canine world, most of them human ignorance related. However, that being said, there are a few things about this man that I would like to address, that I would like to make clear with the members of StopBSL, because neither myself, nor any of the other admin of this group, fully agree with some of his methods in handling dogs.

First of all, we are humans, not dogs, and we cannot hope to ever truly imitate the pack life of wolves. Yes, we are the leader, we are the one that the dog listens to, has to respect, and the rule makers. But we do not have the body of a dog to make the same gestures they do. For example, alpha wolves in the wild do not do this "alpha roll" that Millan constantly uses and recommends. Submissive wolves will roll themselves onto their own backs where the dominant wolf will then mostly likely sniff the submissive wolf's genitals. I don't see you sticking your nose between your dog's legs. This is also something that should never be done if the dog is afraid. Millan uses this technique many times in cases of fear-aggression, when the dog is not attacking out of territorial aggression, but rather because it's afraid of someone or something it is unsure of. Now, let me ask you, if you were afraid of something because you didn't know what it was, had every belief within your mind that it was going to harm you, and someone forced you onto your back and held you down, possibly even that thing you were frightened of, would that not increase your fear?

Speaking of fear, Millan's techniques use what is known as flooding. Flooding is pretty much taking what the dog is afraid of and forcing it to face that fear. Now, this is okay for humans, because humans can make that choice to do so or not, they know what is going on through the entire process. But you cannot ask as much from a dog, and by flooding a dog, you are jeopardizing the trust that dog places in you as its owner and protector, because all they can see is that you're forcing something on them that they fully believe is going to hurt them. Flooding does not allow an animal to get used to what it is afraid of, but rather breaks them instead. Eventually, they simply give up and allow it to happen. That does not take away the fear, and it increases the chances of that dog having many problems in the future.

Another problem with Cesar Millan's techniques is that "tap." In many episodes, he is seen lifting his foot and tapping the dog in the abdomen with the heel of his boot. Here, I would like you to ball your hand into a fist and "tap" yourself in the stomach. Put a little bit of force into it, a good amount of speed, and "tap" yourself like how Millan does to these dogs. It does not feel good. I know when I do it to myself, it jars my intestines and makes me feel queasy. Millan is seen doing this numerous times to several dogs, and not all of them are "light taps" as he says they are. Some are rather firm and cause the animals to jump or yelp in pain. Dogs are very resilient animals, and the only reason they will yelp is when something really hurts them, or really frightens them. The way to gain a dog's trust is not to frighten them or hurt them.

On the same note, there are episodes of 'The Dog Whisperer' that show blatant cruelty, whether people may recognize it or not. On one episode, where a Great Dane is seen lunging at Millan, but as soon as he's within two feet, he jumps back and continues barking and snarling, Millan is seen lifting his leg back and posing himself to football kick the dog in the face. Just as his foot goes down, in full swing to kick this dog, it cuts to him talking about how he had to take action. Now, I know that if I were on the street, being attacked by a strange dog, I might kick it in the face, yes, but this man is supposed to be a professional trainer. He is coming into these peoples' homes to train their dogs not to be aggressive. Kicking a dog in the face isn't exactly going to fix that problem. Putting yourself in a situation where something like that can happen even is unprofessional.

That is not the only instance, however, as in one episode Millan literally chokes a dog until it's nearly passed out. The dominant-aggressive dog shows minimal interest in another dog as it's walking down the street, though does not react, other than to raise its ears and lick its lips. At this point, Millan can be seen "tapping" the dog in the abdomen. The dog then lunges for Millan's arm, which he yanks up, pulling the lead with it that's wrapped around the dog's neck in a manner to where it can tighten. For a few moments, him and the dog wrestle like such, and there are several instances where the dog tries to grab the leash and rip it from Millan's hand, and finally the dog is too exhausted to fight any longer, so he lays down upon the ground. Inside of the dog's mouth, you can see the tongue is blue, a sign of asphyxiation, because the dog had a pink tongue before being choked into submission. The dog breathes heavily for several minutes while Millan explains that the dog was trying to dominate him. I'm sorry, but if someone kicked me in the stomach, I would attack him, too, and then when he tried to choke me, I'd attack even harder.

Flody Suarez, a Hollywood TV Producer, sued Cesar Millan in 2006 when he dropped off his dog at the trainer's correctional facility for several hours and was then called later to be informed the dog had been taken to the vet. Allegedly, there was over $25,000 in veterinary bills after the dog was forced to overexercise on a treadmill with a choke chain. When he arrived at the clinic, it was to find that his dog was in an oxygen tent gasping for air and bleeding from his nose and mouth.

Many of Millan's techniques are not his own, as he claims, either. These training techniques are ones used in the 70s-80s by trainers, and many have been found to be outdated and ineffectual, and in many cases, dogs have been known to get worse after the initial period where they seem better.

Now, as I said early, none of this is to say that all of Cesar Millan's techniques and philosophies are flawed, but please, for the sake of your dog, do your research when training. The dogs on 'The Dog Whisperer' are extreme cases that very few people are facing, and in those cases, they definitely need a professional trainer and should never take on the task themselves, unless they do massive amounts of research, and even then, I wouldn't suggest it. There are reasons the show puts up disclaimers during every episode telling you not to try this at home. Millan's techniques are dangerous, and some of them really are cruel. Flooding is not the answer. Dominance isn't the answer. And many of you are not experts.

Sadly Cesar’s methods are effective. You can train a dog by beating it into submission! And who am I to say you can’t, it works. Even Cesar admits it breaks their spirit. Well, indirectly, but still…. He talks in his book about how when you throw a dog into a pack it has no choice but to do what the other dogs are doing. Then later he mentions that when he moved to the city, just like a dog, he was forced to change his behavior and do things the city kids were doing in order to avoid being beaten up and made fun of. He then goes on to say he hated it and his soul was crushed by the experience. Which begs my question, so how do you think the dogs feel, Cesar?????
It’s no fun for the dog. And it’s not really fun for you as the owner/trainer either (or if it is that’s an entirely different problem).

So now I’m sure you’re asking, what other methods are there? There are tons of techniques and methods out there, but our goal as a trainer/owner should be to find a method that is effective, positive and enjoyable for you and the dog, and the last factor is, it has to be right for you and your individual dog’s needs. Not all dogs are alike, and some are more sensitive to things than others are. I’m wary of trainers who say their methods work on every dog in every situation. There are plenty of ways to skin a cat, so to speak, and maybe even more to teach a dog to sit.

I’m a big fan of operant conditioning, positive reinforcement, and overall making working as a team fun for you and your dog. Now, there are places where a correction has its place –I’m a strong believer in consequences for your actions, but ‘correction’ does not necessarily mean something physical and unpleasant for the dog.
Clarice Rutherford made an excellent point in her book, How to Raise a Puppy you Can Live With. I don’t agree with all of the things she says, but this point hit home and I agree whole-heartedly.
“If he isn’t doing anything bad, then he MUST be a good puppy.” An example: Say puppy grabs your flip flop and starts chewing on it. My idea is to give a “correction” which usually consists of me mimicking a noise of a buzzer and then saying “whoops”, “wrong”, or something like that. Then I quietly take the shoe from puppy. But what now? How about try giving puppy his favorite squeaky-toy? And here’s the punch. As soon as puppy is chewing on it, oh, he is the best puppy in the world, and don’t let him forget it. So now, not only does puppy realize the shoe was a bad idea, he knows what he should be doing instead.
Another quick example before I move on is when a dog jumps on me, one method is to shove him off, knee him in the stomach, etc. What I try first is simply turning my back and crossing my arms every time he jumps. I wait until he has all four feet on the ground, then turn around and praise him. Sometimes my wonderful buzzer noise is a good addition to turning and ignoring the dog, as is asking the dog to sit. The moment his butt touches the ground I turn around and praise him quietly. He’ll probably jump again, but with enough repetition they tend to get the idea. It takes time and repeating the game a million times, but practice makes permanent. Once he’s starting to get it, be proactive and ask him to sit before he jumps.
That’s another one of my favorites. Learn to read your dog and stop them before they do something wrong. Oh I think you are going to bark at that old woman and her toy poodle. How about you ‘sit’ and ‘watch’, oh what a good dog! –give treat and walk away with happily together-. So much easier than dragging your barking dog away yelling, or yanking on his collar repeatedly until he stops.

Another good point mentioned is Cesar’s use of flooding to get a dog over his fears. Forcing him to react and then basically beating him into submission until he has no other choice but to do what Cesar wants him to. I’m not very familiar with this method, but it sounds a whole lot like forcing the dog into a situation of learned helplessness to me. And frankly, I can’t see how it actually helps the dog. The next time he encounters this situation in which he is uncomfortable, he will remember the bad experience and be even more on edge and unhappy. This is not the state you want your teammate to be in when you need to work together.

To counter this, I want to share one of my favorite, recent discoveries. It requires a bit of shaping though, so I’ll start with an explanation of what that is.

You probably know “shaping” better as clicker training, but you don’t have to use a clicker, any ‘mark’ will do. Personally I don’t like having the extra thing in my hand to worry about, and my timing is much better using a verbal mark. So instead of clicking I use the word “yes”. Either way works, but timing is the key. Also, on a side-note, when I say treat I have a few requirements. A treat can be food, but when used in shaping it needs to be a small enough piece that the dog can eat it quickly and in one bite. In place of the food you could also toss a ball/toy for the dog to chase/catch, or play a quick game of tug –it all depends on what motivates your dog.

So here’s how shaping works. First you use Pavlov’s classical conditioning to get the dog to associate the mark with the treat. Easy. Stand with the dog near you in a quiet space, and simply make the mark (click or “yes”) and immediately after the sound give the dog the treat. Do this about 10-20 times in a row, and I guarantee you the dog will anticipate the reward as soon as they hear the mark. This is called charging the clicker. It can be helpful to repeat this step before each session, especially if the dog is new to being shaped, or it has been a long time since you last worked on shaping something with them.
The next step is to teach them how to think. At this point in the session, the free treats are a thing of the past, and the dog must figure out how to get you to make that wonderful mark noise. In shaping, the dog is never wrong, and you do not tell the dog what to do, you let them figure it out. At first this guessing game can be confusing, but once the dog has done it a few times they tend to catch on fast. When in doubt start slow and keep the sessions short and fun.
So in my opinion, the easiest thing to start with is a “watch”. I use that word, but you can use whichever one you want. It means, look at my face/ pay attention to me. It is one of the most valuable commands you can teach your dog, and with shaping is easy to learn. So you’ve charged the clicker, I’m sure your dog is staring at you waiting for your next more. Wait until they drop their eyes or look at something else, and as soon as they look back, mark and treat. Repeat until they won’t look away from you. Then you can toss something uninteresting to the side so they look away, and wait until they look back at you, again, mark and treat. If they are really clever, they will start looking away on purpose just so they can get treats for looking back at you. If they start that or just refuse to look away, this step is over. The next session after a few tries you can add your cue in. Then only reward the dog when it has looked at you after saying your cue. So Diva is sniffing the ground. I say, “Diva, watch”. If she looks up at me she gets a mark/treat. And you’ve just trained your dog without ever making them do anything.

This is where the “look at that game”, coined by Leslie McDevitt (author of Control Unleashed –excellent book on positive methods and working with dogs with special needs, I HIGHLY recommend it!), comes in. If your dog is afraid of something, one of the worst thing you can do is force them to confront it (drag them to it, force their nose in it, so to speak). Or on a similar note, if your dog is freaking out and barking at something out of fear or aggression, yanking them around and dragging them away from it is not going to teach them anything.

So here we have shaping and a bit of reverse psychology.

My dad’s dog, Markley, is the perfect example of how this game can work. My dad wanted to hear my sister play some music on the flute. She agreed and started playing a song. Markley rushes at her barking aggressively. My sister listens to me, stops playing, and turns her back to Markley. He calms down enough that I can put him on a leash and walk him a good distance away, grab a bag of small treats, and get ready with the clicker. I tell my sister to play about three notes. As soon as he looks at her, but before he can bark, I click and treat. The catch, he has to turn back to me to get the treat. I repeat this a few times then I tell my sister to start playing her song again. And simply repeat this game. I never wait long enough for Markley to bark. As soon as he looks at the crazy flute, he gets a click and a treat. Now he’s stuck staring at me because he knows I have food. He wants to work, and magically he’s ignoring the flute. Now I tell him, “Look at that!” in a happy voice and point to my sister. He glances quickly and gets clicked and treated again. Now he has it figured out. He wants the treats so badly that he is barely moving his head in her direction before he looks back expectantly. It’s almost funny. He’ll flip his nose about 2 cm in her direction and look back ready for his food. He’s not scared, he’s not reacting, he’s happily playing a game with me. Now we start working again. Go through some commands, still if he looks at my sister and the flute, he gets a mark and a treat, but he’s looking less and less and working on other ways to get food from me. Now we can move closer. By the end of it we can heel calmly around my sister while she’s playing, and even get him to touch his nose to her leg with his “touch” command. He’s happy, my sister isn’t bothered, and all we did was play a game.
Now he’s not cured completely. We’ll probably have to do this again next time my sister plays the flute, but the more situations we set up like this and play the game, the more calm he will be around the “scary stimulus”. With some time and practice he’ll feel calm around flute music because really all we are doing is rewarding calm behavior and facing his fears. We aren’t making a big deal of it, because frankly someone playing the flute should not be a big deal. Not only have we stopped the unwanted behavior, we have been a calm and consistent leader, showing our dog that really the flute is not something to be afraid of. We have also helped him take steps to facing his fear, so next time he hears flute music he might think of liver treats instead of fighting for his life.

This works on things that the dog is afraid of, things the dog is overreacting too, things the dog wants to chase, other distractions, etc. The key is that it’s not dragging the dog away and not allowing him to look. It makes him look, and with each glance he can see the thing really isn’t all that remarkable. And he’s also getting rewarded for looking calmly instead of lunging, barking, etc. You are calm and in charge the entire time but can still have an enjoyable experience with your dog.

Things to remember: Set your dog up for success!! If at any time he freaks out or gets confused, calmly and quietly go back to an earlier step. Don’t change more than one thing at a time. And take baby steps. Keep the sessions short and fun; don’t wait until your dog is bored or mentally exhausted. And always end on a good note. Don’t try and get one more good response, end on the great one you just had.
Notice how there were no commands used ever except for the hey, “look at that!” on occasion. You don’t have to say anything, except happy praises for your dog. You don’t have to correct the dog. It’s fun.

Now it’s not quick. Beating the dog into submission might give you instant results, but once you get results with the more positive methods, they will be lasting. You will need to brush up on them from time to time otherwise your dog will get rusty, and they’ll remember things a lot quicker if you’ve kept up with it.

Note that this is an overview or introduction to methods like these. By no means have I covered everything. If you have any questions about anything I’ve said, want to know more, or just want to chat, please let me know.

We recommend that if you have a problem dog, either get a professional trainer to help you out, or do lots of research yourself and train the dog the right way, not breaking it down and forcing it to submit. Lorie Long's A Dog Who's Always Welcome is great another great resource we recommend for training, alongside of Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt (who also writes many other great books about dog training). It's also great to learn about a dog's body language to know when they're being fearful, dominant, happy, sad, distressed, etc. One great book to help learn about a dog's body language is Canine Body Language: A Photographic Guide by Brenda Aloff. There are plenty of alternatives to Cesar Millan's ways, and they're displayed on television as well. Victoria Stilwell has her own show on Animal Planet called 'It's Me or the Dog.' This show is similar to 'The Dog Whisperer' in that Victoria retrains dogs with big problems, but she uses positive methods instead. We recommend her over Millan.

And remember to check out StopBSL on Facebook!