Well, this weekend I caught ESPN on Sunday AM, which features an entire morning of dog training shows. So far, so good.
The show "Makeover: Hunt dog Edition" was on. And it was stupid beyond words.
The show featured a young, very bored German Shorthair owned by dumb yuppies that had no business owning a young, active hunting breed. The wife basically wanted to dog to be placid and just lie in the corner. She bit*hed and moaned when it would chew things, etc. Of course, the dog got very little exercise, was confined to a small corner of the kitchen, and didn't get any obedience training.
So what is the show's answer to the problem? The bring in some "T-touch" trainer, that basically teaches them how to pet their dog in a calming fashion for a 30 min. session. No discussion of obedience training, no recommendations for a crate or to increase it's exercise. Cripes, why do people turn to new-age dog training and totally skip the conventional but effective methods of training? I felt very sorry for the dog for having dumb and lazy owners.
By the second visit the owners were discussing getting rid of the dog. I reached my "stupidity fill point" at that time and turned the TV off.

Guess I'll head outside now and massage and pet Fetz and Buttercup for 30 mins as a new training regime....yeah, *that'll* do a lot of good. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Maybe the other episodes were better than this one, I sure hope so...

What the Animal Planet channel or whoever needs is a dog training series. Does anybody remember that TV series with that British lady, Woodhouse I think here name was, was that any good for pet owners?

Oh but they DO have a dog training series. It's called "Good Dog U" as in University. It makes me laugh, but I guess for beginners, or for the people that would be watching the show on a regular basis, it might be at least of some help. They do use both positives and negatives, so it isn't all about that purely positive crap, but it is still a bit tailored to the lazies out there.

This may be a tangent from TV training, but about the couple mentioned in the show -
Few things piss me off more than seeing a neurotic, poorly behaving dog that got that way because its owners wanted an ornament with a pulse, not a dog. I grew up with dogs, but once I left home at 18 I waited 16 years before I got a dog of my own because a single infantryman who deploys a lot should not own a dog, and a married guy whose wife doesn't want a dog shouldn't get one either. I finally got a schedule that allows me to give the animal the time it deserves, and my wife and I mutually decided we were willing to make the (few) sacrifices of time that should be made. We could not be happier with our young man, who at 6 months old can go with us to restaurants/bars with outdoor seating, sits when kids charge at him, and mostly sleeps in the house (because we wear his ass out every morning and evening). People get dogs and expect them to be pieces of furniture who require no time, and when this produces a crappy dog, they wonder why and end up getting rid of it. If any of these folks on the TV shows really cared about spending time with their animals, they would have done research on behavior problems and how to train online long before a trainer and camera crews got involved, and would at least know something about the problems their dog has before the TV interview. Instead they seem surprised that the animal that gets no exercise, attention, or training isn't a perfectly behaved little couch potato, forget for a moment that they have no clue that the dog has been bred for the last 100 to 2000 years NOT to be a couch potato. The only trainer I have seen on TV that isn't afraid to say, essentially, "this dog is f**ed up because YOU are f**ed up" is the dog whisperer guy, who actually seems to understand dogs pretty well (as I slowly draw this thread back to TV shows) but he is a behaviorist, not a trainer per se. If people would realize that 99% of dogs would never develop any behavior problems if they were trained properly in the first place, there would be a lot of happier dogs, and probably no need for these TV shows in the first place. And by proper training does not mean anything more than basic manners, which ain't that tricky, and lays the foundation fopr pretty much anything else you want to have a dog do.
I will get of the soapbox now. Have a great day everyone.

 Quote:

The only trainer I have seen on TV that isn't afraid to say, essentially, "this dog is f**ed up because YOU are f**ed up" is the dog whisperer guy, who actually seems to understand dogs pretty well (as I slowly draw this thread back to TV shows) but he is a behaviorist, not a trainer per se.

That show (presented by National Geographic) comes on about the time I have breakfast every day, so I get to watch it pretty regularly.

Every time I steel myself for the stupid stuff such as offered by that Psychic Pet lady...but so far Cesar Millan seems to have some fairly useful training info. But like mentioned, it's the people he usually ends up training, not the dog.

His mantra on every show is: "this is a dog, not a child; a dog reacts like a dog not a human; don't expect a dog to have human traits...". It's all about training people to recognise what they are inadvertantly teaching their dog through their own behaviors.

Usually he can correct a problem by simply getting the owners to take control, putting into terms the humans can understand what is going on with the animal.

But today the program actually showed him use a prong collar on an aggressive boxer! Guess the touchy-feely stuff wasn't working well.... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Well....the "T-trainer" that I saw on TV yesterday told the brain -dead owners that their dog was "chewing secondary to emotional issues" . <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />
IDIOTS!!

Jeff - great post!
Promote that man ahead of his peers! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I attended Cesar Milan's seminar in L.A. last February. He is a behaviorist, and I observed that his approach is to train the owners to behave and the dogs are allowed to be dogs instead of little people. His outline of what he calls the "fulfillment formula" is a program of 50% excerise, 25% discipline, 25% affection and the affection part comes after the first two. His observation that all affection, no discipline, no exercise creates the same results with dogs or children. After seeing my grandkids' behavior I think he's right on. The seminar was over three hours long so this is a simplification of his methods, but he conveys a no nonsense, this dog will behave attitude and he expects all of his followers to do the same. Most of the attendees were rescue folks and people working in a multi dog environment. I got no interest or sympathy when I whined about my two GSDs knocking me down the stairs a couple of times. They are good dogs, but they outweigh me and they love to race me to the bottom. I am going to work one on one with a disciple of his at the end of this month and see if she can whip me into shape. I'll keep you posted as to the result.

High Nadia, With 2 house GSD's myself and a flight of stairs, I don't think they are raceing down the stairs but are in a controlled fall <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> try going down stairs head first. just a guess on my part

I'd settle for a controlled fall, at least for me. But the joy of sharing our home with these two wonderful animals far offsets the scary stairs.