Charlie's Paws: Is the Dog Whisperer Wise?

We used to watch the National Geographic’s “Dog Whisperer” ALL of the time. We admired Cesar Millan’s seemingly magical skills for taming aggressive dogs and turning them into obedient pets in a matter of minutes. However, that was before we got Charlie and before we read a ton of books on dog training and dog behavior. It turns out that Cesar Millan has been severely criticized by many reputable dog professionals and organizations for his coercive training methods that are based on outdated 'dominance' theories. According to dog behaviorists, who are informed by canine behavioral science and have influenced the development of modern dog training, Cesar Millan’s forceful and punitive techniques, such as “alpha roll over”, can do more harm than good in the long run. Dogs that are trained by these methods may develop fear and anxiety about humans, which can often lead to fear-based aggression. If used on “soft” dogs, like many Cocker Spaniels, they may shut down, frozen with fear. We have a friend who tried the 'alpha roll over' technique when her dog showed signs of aggression (i.e. growling and snarling). The dog actually became even more aggressive and started biting her to the point that it caused puncture wounds on multiple occasions. In addition to Cesar Millan’s methodology, other forms of punitive techniques that cause mild discomfort to prevent unwanted behavior are not recommend because it causes dogs to become hand-shy; these practices include holding the front paws when dogs jump on you, grabbing the collar, shaking the dog, and tapping their muzzle.

We’ve learned that positive reinforcement (i.e. treats, toys, positive attention) combined with negative punishment (i.e. not getting attention if he jumps on people, not being able to get closer to the dog park if he pulls on the leash) is more effective and produces more reliable and enduring results. So we use lots of treats when training Charlie. After having attended 3 obedience classes, in addition to 2 puppy kindergarten courses, he is, for the most part, a pretty well-behaved dog...but don’t we all think our dogs are perfect? He politely waits for the "okay" command before going out the door or getting out of the car. He walks nicely on a loose leash. He can heal and focus on us while passing by other dogs (this is still difficult for Charlie, so we need treats in our hands when we take him for a walk). Although the positive training method takes longer to establish desired behaviors, we are convinced that this is the best methodology for Charlie. Right now we are working on the “leave it” and “hold it” commands, not jumping on people, and, as a kind of fun trick, giving us back massages. (We're not kidding—we hope to post a video soon).