Quote: Connie Sutherland

 Quote: Dawna Provancial

 Quote: Michael_Wise

Oh the humanity......not.

For aggression, I thought he went easy.

Thats as hard as I kick Turbo when he attacks my socks every night. Yes, when we are playing a game.

lol, I agree with you as that "kick" wouldn't even make my Hobbes flinch except to look at me with his "what do you want" look.

I have seen him do that a zillion times. Standing on one foot (balancing) and using the other foot, behind the standing leg, to touch the dog. Try it. If you actually meant to kick a dog, is that how you'd do it?

I have to admit that I have done this. It makes for a surprise "snap out of what you are doing" attention getter, because I haven't telegraphed my movement with body language.

I'd fall over if it was anything more than a quick touch.

I guess someone more agile than I am could actually kick the dog that way. But that's not what I see.

JMO!

The mistakes I have seen him make were virtually all about using tools the owner had. None have been about his personal hands or any other part of his body on the dog. Again JMO.

Connie, I have tried it and got Hobbes attention back on me which is how I know what he'd do. Although I had to practice a bit without dog so I wouldn't land on my butt and if I wanted to kick to actually hurt a dog, I sure wouldn't do it that way. JMHO

I think opinions are going to be flavored by personal experiences with our dogs and people around us.

Have you had experience with soft dogs or hard dogs? Pushy or compliant?

Are you round poeple that go "psh, psh, psh" or otherwise try to play CM around your dogs to show you how it should be done?

I liked the guy better before he was so popular. I'm not sure if it was him or some advertising agent/media giant, but he seemed to go from just an average guy with an amazing dog sense to the macho silver bullet in the dog world.

I think he's been pushed out of his element a bit, too. He is amazing at reading and understanding "dog" in the areas of pack position, body language, nervous energy or calm demeanor. Still he can't be all things in the dog world, but it seems that he's trying to be sometimes. He had no clue what he was doing with the ecollar so he should have left it alone. I saw him take a dog "herding" once and talk about how wonderful it was that the dog could chase the sheep for 5 minutes and drain all it's energy - yikes!

Does everyone make mistakes? Absolutely! But I think he'd be a whole lot better off sticking to what he knows well and is natural at.

Yes, as Ed commented, he lost control of his project.

The e-collar was his biggest mistake, IMO. You may have seen the long thread here about it and the response I got from his assistant about editorial input with that fiasco.

:-(

"But I think he'd be a whole lot better off sticking to what he knows well and is natural at."

Yes. He is too good for going off his path and getting lost in the unknown. I hate to see it.

 Quote: Mara Jessup

Are you round poeple that go "psh, psh, psh" or otherwise try to play CM ....

Like Cartman's mother?

Maybe my favorite line in that South Park episode (among many hilarious lines): "Oh, look. It came back."

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

 Quote: Mara Jessup

Are you round poeple that go "psh, psh, psh" or otherwise try to play CM ....

Like Cartman's mother?

Maybe my favorite line in that South Park episode (among many hilarious lines): "Oh, look. It came back."

OMGosh! favorite episode ever! "So the child needs to learn he's not the most important person in the house." LOL! For people who have never experienced this hillarious episode- a small clip http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155251/cartman-vs-the-dog-whisperer

Oh, that just made me want more. I looooove that episode.

I will admit to being a massive Cesar fan, I wish I had half his gift and affinity with dogs; re the e-collar episode, I don't think he should have hidden the fact he used/uses one, thats a no-brainer, and can't find any rational excuse for it, but his empathy with dogs, and his patience with some of the numpties he is presented with, (is it my imagination or are all the people in his show and Super Nannys Jo Frost all middle class, uber comfortably off stoopids??) should not be entrusted to an earth worm let alone a dog, goes a long way to giving these poor dogs a crack at having a better life as dogs and not furry children.

I like the man, and his methods, on the whole.

I am not a CM fan but not a hater either :-) I agree with what Mara said above. I saw it in horses where you have trainers that do have great skills when it comes to training go commercial and that focus distracts from the skills part in my opinion.

Trainers such as John Lyons a horse trainer with some good ideas on training. He got popular and started selling WAY over-priced orange cones to use in his training program when you could easily buy cheap ones at your local home depot. It just seems that the focus becomes more about pushing products than it is about the training.

CM with his collars, books, etc just seems to be following the path of numerous other trainers that have transitioned from just being someone with great skills to getting too wrapped up in marketing merchandise for my taste.

Just my two cents :-)

 Quote: tracey holden

re the e-collar episode, I don't think he should have hidden the fact he used/uses one ....

http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=11110&page=1

http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=11110&page=3#101384

See the first post on each link.

I started recording CM on DVR for my husband right after we got married. Steve had never been around dogs at all, and while the care and training for my dogs is my responsibility, I wanted him to have a better understanding of how to live with them and respond to them. (the same as teaching my kids how to behave around dogs.) The CM episodes served that purpose quite well.

I've always wondered about all the dogs running free together at his behavior center. I'd love to know if new additions are crated when unsupervised and what kind of supervision they have on a daily basis, how they are housed ect. Perhaps it's covered in a book or something.