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Cesar Millan or Victoria Stilwell

47K views 405 replies 76 participants last post by  Crantastic 
#1 ·
There doesn't seem to be any middle ground when reading about these two. I can find positives with both personalities, but most people seem to be in one camp or the other. I'm curious to hear the opinions of people on this forum. Be sure to include why you feel the way you do.
 
#385 ·
I love Patricia McConnell. She is so sweet and down to earth. She, I would totally have trusted with my dogs had I actually ever needed any help with any of them. She is really funny too.
 
#383 · (Edited)
Crantastic: good job on the P. McC. quotes. I think she has it about right. Dominance exists but it is only a factor (not THE factor) in the human-dog relationship. My problem with Stillwell is that she is a screeching harridan who doesn't even follow her own philosophy. She's got a bunch of awards (for basically promoting a party line) but what, training wise, has she actually done?

My problems with Milan are that he "solves" discrete behavior problems, and I consider that approach to be totally asinine in the vast majority of cases. Train your dog completely and most behavior problems evaporate as if by magic. His philosoppy is all about what's going on inside the dog's head. I closely watch a dog for signs of physical/mental stress, but the dog needs to concern himself with what I want and what I'm thinking. Why? Because I'm the human and he's the freakin' dog

Also, the aforementioned individuals are TV stars more than anything else. Their primary objective is to get people to.watch so products can be pitched to them. In order to keep people interested, much drama is manufactured. Dog training is mostly about as exciting as watching paint dry. It can get exciting but that often means you screwed something up.

That's my 2 cents. Don't spend it all in one place.
 
#384 ·
Yeah, I prefer Victoria to Cesar and I like that she's learning more about training and behavior all the time, but I wouldn't recommend either to someone who asked me about dog behavior. There are just so many much better books and blogs out there by people like McConnell and Dunbar and Donaldson.

If I had to recommend one of the TV shows to someone, it'd be Victoria's, just because if people use her techniques, they won't potentially ruin their relationship with their dog.
 
#386 · (Edited)
Patricia McConnell is probably my favorite. She's incredibly knowledgeable about dogs, humans, and other animals, and she writes about things in a way that anyone can understand. I loved her book The Other End of the Leash, and I like her blog a lot, too. She just put up an entry about resource guarding which I know I'll be linking people to in the future -- it was hard to find good writeups that explained how to fix RGing before.

(Also, I know the poster who didn't believe that McConnell has a lot of experience with "troubled" dogs is long gone, but she says in that entry that she has worked with hundreds, maybe thousands, of resource guarders alone.)
 
#387 ·
I recommended McConnell to someone. A puppy owner who was having fear issues with a Schnauzer puppy and she lived in Madison. I told owner about how lucky she was that she lived in Madison area because of this wonderful trainer who lived up there. Owner signs up for class and owner e-mails and says all they do in that class is feed the dogs. She was from the old time of choke chains and 'good dog' was the reward. She was worried her dog would get fat. Told Schnauzer owner give it time, and see what happens. Owner stuck with the class and the puppy now as dog is a wonderful well behaved dog. I just have to chuckle because this owner seemed so out of wits that how can her dog learn anything if all they are doing is feeding the dog. She finally understood the concept by the end of the training classes.
 
#388 ·
This reminded me of what happened at work the other day. The lady who runs the doggy daycare is working on enrolling in a pretty good dog trainer school and is all about positive reinforcement. Well, this lady came in with this adorable aussie puppy for first shots, and the trainer came out to talk to her, with one of those food egg puzzle things and a kong. She was trying to get the owner (Who seemed like she had no idea what she was about to get into with a puppy, let alone an Aussie!) to know about the food puzzles and kongs and such, and also pushed her puppy pre school class on her for socialization. Owner seemed completely uninterested in educating herself and claimed she needed to "do more research first".

Well... the last time an owner decided to ignore the trainer's advice on PR tools and classes... it turned into a 8 month old GSD puppy who had to bed held down and muzzled just to get a pre med for her spay... Yep. Completely unsocialized, bit someone in the clinic, probably going to end up getting put down at a young age because her owners were idiots...
 
#392 ·
Sassafras, that's a shame. Our obedience instructor actually encourages people to so exactly what you're doing, and points out people in class who are already doing it correctly as an example.

Watson is like Jubel and needs a lot of engagement in classes. I'm trying to get him more to a point where he can settle without me having to engage with him all the time, but it's hard.
 
#395 ·
Oh, gotcha. Yea, and that he waited until almost the end of the last class to say anything when it had clearly been bugging him all along. I don't mind people asking questions about what I'm doing, because it did kind of look like we were doing... nothing. But I ain't got time to explain what I'm doing if you're going to be that way about it, dude.
 
#396 ·
That's why I liked that my instructor explained it to everyone, so nobody is sitting on the sidelines judging others for feeding their crazy dogs. Though of course a trainer would be more likely to explain it in a level 2 obedience class vs some other type of class.
 
#400 ·
Wow, what a great discussion! I don't have enough knowledge to have an opinion about who is better but I want to thank everyone that provided links for more reading. Although I never watched Dog Whisperer for anything other than entertainment, it would have never occurred to me that the premise of the pack leader might be flawed. I would never have tried his "red zone" techniques anyway because I don't have any training but now for sure I will just take away from the show his lessons on exercise and calm owner behavior.

We just adopted our three year old dog a week ago so we're still just discovering what she's like. No matter what issues she might have we will be seeking professional training help and not relying on tv shows to help us! :D
 
#401 ·
Wow, what a great discussion! I don't have enough knowledge to have an opinion about who is better but I want to thank everyone that provided links for more reading. Although I never watched Dog Whisperer for anything other than entertainment, it would have never occurred to me that the premise of the pack leader might be flawed. I would never have tried his "red zone" techniques anyway because I don't have any training but now for sure I will just take away from the show his lessons on exercise and calm owner behavior.

We just adopted our three year old dog a week ago so we're still just discovering what she's like. No matter what issues she might have we will be seeking professional training help and not relying on tv shows to help us! :D
Congrats on the new dog! And the right attitude ;)

This forum opened up my eyes on many things concerning dogs, including CM. I used to be on his bandwagon and will have to do some explaining to my childhood dog :/. I'm not sure if anyone ever explicitly said this, but putting this out there for those lurking/new: the point of watching Dog Whisperer muted is so you can focus in on the dogs' body language without the sound to distract you. That is what other's were getting at and cisco failed to understand. Though you may want to look up "calming signals, turid rugaas" to get the full intended effect of you don't know of it yet.
 
#402 ·
I don't watch either for the most part. I have watched and I find them both slightly annoying, although Milan's rollerblading with dogs that need exercise...does amuse me. Once Stillwell shows up in black leather like something out of a Shades of Grey story wannabe...I'm out.

Give me a dog, a leash and some freeze dried liver. I've never had a dog be out of control or obnoxious to the point of my having to call in a game show host. (And I've had dogs for, let's just say...a long time. :)
 
#403 ·
Victoria by far. I don't really like either, I'd rather find a different more proffessional trainer if I ended up needing one. But between these two? It should be obvious.

I hate Ceasar with a passion. His alpha or dominant training techniques, which have been proven time and time again to be harmful and outdated, just piss me off. Of course a dog is going to calm down and not pull when you've physically and emotionally shut it down.
 
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