pulldogs:

“Two years ago, while taking photographs, I met a 30-year- old horse named Arthur who belonged to an 88-year-old widower named James who was diagnosed with dementia and had to go live in a nursing home. James adored Arthur while he could, he gave him a wonderful life, and lived with the sweet old horse for 25 years. James always planned, when the time came, to euthanize Arthur or, if that proved impossible, to send him to a nearby slaughterhouse. The local slaughterhouse was close by, and was well-known for being humane. Slaughter was quick and painless, the horse and animal owners were always invited to come and watch if they wished, for their own peace of mind and to accompany their animals on their final passage.

In James world, this was considered the ethical way for animals to die.

James’s mind failed before he resolved Arthur’s fate. He had to leave his farm and could not bury Arthur there, as he hoped. The horse was too old to give away. James was not aware that the people who claim to speak for the rights of animals had lobbied Congress and state legislators to make the slaughterhouses of America illegal. Many functioned in rural communities close to the people in their communities. The animal rights groups were successful, there are no longer any horse slaughterhouses left in the United States.

But the number of horses without homes increased. The horses had to go somewhere. As often happens with issues relating to animals, no one had considered that the results of these good intentions would make the lives of the horses much, much worse.

When James left his farm, Arthur was seized by local authorities, given to a rescue farm that could not afford to care for him and did not have room for him. In a story now familiar to horse rescuers, Arthur was brought to an auction house and bought by a horse kill buyer (who worked for a slaughterhouse in Canada and Mexico, where horses are now sent to be killed.) Arthur, an old draft horse, was purchased for $200, taken to a feedlot where he was given little to eat, according to a relative of James who tracked his journey and tried to save him, put on a trailer and driven for 11 days through summer heat without ever once being allowed to move around or walk outside.

It is common knowledge in the horse world that these horses are treated harshly, the Mexican slaughterhouses in particular are not inclined to spend much money on fresh hay or water for horses that are about to be killed and sold as pet food, or even human food in some countries.

Arthur was jammed into a trailer with a dozen other horses, given little food or water, and transported in a way that evoked World War II concentration camps much more than the good life he had led. The relative still has nightmares thinking of what Arthur’s last days were like, how terrified he must have been, and how lonely. When Arthur got to Mexico, he was released into a crowded corral, given little to eat, and stood out in the heat for days. He was finally killed by having a three-inch nail driven into his head.

Arthur deserved a better fate than this, especially at the hands of human beings who claim to love animals so much that we owe them perfect lives but must be taken far away to die harshly. We need a better and wiser understanding of animal ethics than making emotional decisions without considering their consequences:

And horses will have to die for some time, there are far too many to care for and far too few resources. There are hundreds of thousands of unwanted horses in the United States with no one to care for them – 150,000 will go to slaughter this year; there are millions of dogs and cats leading cruel and unnatural lives languishing in crates in no-kill shelters all over the county. Yet we are constantly rescuing more, there is no natural limit to the number of animals in need.

In America, we are hobbled by an animal rights movement and political lobby that has lost any sense of empathy or common sense when it comes to even discussing the welfare of animals.

Good breeders who promote the best traits in animals being harassed and persecuted and driven from business; people are made to feel guilty for choosing their pets wisely and well. Dog lovers are afraid to ride with their pets in their cars. Farmers fear to have livestock visible from the road. Ponies are going to slaughter because it is now considered abuse for children to ride them; hundreds of elephants are being sentenced to almost certain death, driven from the circuses by people who claim to love them and insist they are being horribly mistreated, and people are so drawn to rescuing things that they scour the country, even other countries, looking for dogs and other animals for people to rescue.

This notion of animal ethics is not sustainable nor humane, nor ethical. We need a better understanding of animal ethics:

__ We need to understand that is not cruel for working animals to work, but essential to their health and future survival. Working animals ought never to be put in danger by being forcibly driven from caring and responsible homes with no clear sense of where they might go.

__ It is ethical to know fate of the animals we “save” from abuse when we take their work and security away from them. Too often, we simply pat ourselves on the back for being virtuous while the animals we supposedly have helped go off to slaughter. We need to require the advocates of horse and animal and pony and other bans to know – and document – precisely where banished animals like horses and elephants and ponies will go, who will care for them and how their care will be funded.

__It is unethical to dislocate and endanger safe and healthy animals while more than 9 billion animals suffer daily in sometimes horrendous conditions in giant industrial animal farms set up by corporations who never seem to get harassed or raided, ticketed, shut down , or have their animals seized and re-homed. Meanwhile, farmers, animal lovers and private citizens are subjected to the raids and intrusions of the growing cadres of secret animal informers who patrol the country’s farms, and the cities and suburbs and parking lots where people ride with their dogs.

An ethical animal rights or welfare system would target the people who truly abuse animals, and the animals who are truly abused, not those who do not. The New York carriage drivers, for example, are not the people who abuse animals, and the carriage horses are not the animals who are abused.

__We need a system of rescue that keeps animals in the lives and consciousness of everyday people and does not consistently send them off to isolation, lives of idleness at great costs, and almost certain extinction. Animals have the right to survive in our everyday lives, our people and children have the right to see them and know them. Domesticated animals with no work or connection with people vanish from the earth, that is their story and their history.

__ An ethical animal welfare movement must understand that there is no nature, no wild, for animals to return to any longer. There is no greater abuse of animals than the destruction of animal habitats all over the world, and we are all responsible for it. We need to acknowledge our own individual role in destroying the natural world rather than simply hating and harassing the people we blame for it, the people who work with animals, live with them, and yes, are the ones who kill them and take them to slaughter.

There is no place for domesticated animals to go when we drive them away and claim work with humans is cruel and abusive. Climate change challenges us to re-think our animals about where and how animals can remain in our world, there is mythical space out there for the carriage horses, the ponies, or the elephants to go when they are driven from their work, increasingly condemned as “abuse” or “stupid tricks.” Such tricks have uplifted and entertained human beings for thousands of years, a debt that can never be repaid.

We are condemning these animals – the ponies, the carriage horses, the elephants – to a death much like Arthur’s. That is not an ethical solution to their dilemma.

__We need to make good and hard decisions about which animals can be saved, and which cannot. Asian elephants and draft horses are not killer whales, who have never been domesticated or worked for long periods with people. Animals are different, they require different solutions and support. It is humane and ethical to free killer whales and return them to the ocean, it is merciful and possible. It is the cruelest kind of abuse to take carriage horses away from their human beings and force them onto rescue farms, where they will have no human contact, no work and nothing to do but eat hay and drop manure.

__Adoptable, healthy dogs with good temperaments are vanishing from many public shelters while rescue groups guickly take in adoptable dogs, often for people who can afford them, and leave others to pick from dogs that are often unhealthy, traumatized or troubled. Is this really humane or ethical? Our system of animal rescue, shelter and adoption routinely separate the poor the elderly and working people from animals, even though millions desperately need homes.

(A Cleveland man was denied the right to adopt a dog because he said he wanted to walk it off leash in the country sometimes, an elderly woman denied a cat because she wanted it to spend time in her garden, a carpenter denied a dog because worked six or seven days a week, a New York carriage driver and his family were denied a dog because the shelter thought it was abuse for a horse to pull carriages.)

__It is unethical to force countless or damaged dogs into society that hurt people, especially children. According to the CDC, dog bites are now epidemic, increasing at the rate of 47 per cent a year. Most of these bites are on the faces and necks of small children, who are low to the ground. Many require treatment for trauma and extensive and expensive facial surgery reconstruction. Some dogs cry out for rescue, some do not. Dogs do not make moral decisions, it is never their fault when they harm someone. That does not mean they have to flood our crowded society while carriage horses – who never harm anyone – are sent away.

__It is unethical to manipulate people by claiming the only way to get a dog is to rescue one. There are many good ways to get a dog or cat, including rescuing one. It is ethical to acquire a dog in a careful and thoughtful way. It is ethical to get an animal in a way that is a wise and rational – and safe – choice for people and their families. It is ethical to get a dog or cat that will be content and make his or her new family happy.

__We need an ethical understanding of the fact that good breeders – like good rescue organizations – promote the best traits in dogs: good temperament, healthy bodies and immune systems, loyalty and affection to people. It is not ethical to promote the adoption or purchase of dogs that hurt people or other animals. Try to remember where those photogenic and appealing herding dogs actually come from.

—It is unethical to fail to regulate breeders or rescue organizations. They breed and sell and place living beings. They should be supervised and overseen in the same way that the New York Carriage Horses are regulated, subject to inspections and the adoption of healthy breeding and living conditions. The best gift that many dogs and cats can be given – millions are abandoned, returned, imprisoned in shelters for years, or lifetimes – may be to not come into the world at all. If there are millions in shelters, then there are too many animals.

__The goal of any animal rights movement ought to be the promotion of health and safety for animals in our every day world, not their removal from society. It is unethical to make it ever more difficult for ordinary people – the poor, the working, the elderly – to adopt, purchase, or keep animals. It is unethical to seek to remove animals that are healthy and well cared for.

__It is unethical to use the love of animals as a pretext for hating and harming people. The people who live and live with animals are entitled to the same dignity and respect as dogs and cats and horses.

Ethics are important, they are the moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s or a society’s behavior.

The animal rescue impulse is noble, and has saved the lives of many animals. But like all social movements, it requires balance, thoughtfulness and nuance and perspective.

Our deep love for animals makes rational argument about the right and wrong way to treat them difficult.

And as of now, there is little rational argument about animal ethics, the current ethos argues that the lives of all animals are precious, animals have equal, even superior rights than human beings, and animals must be given perfect lives and kept alive at all costs by any means. This widespread and fiercely defended ideology is not, to me, ethical or merciful, it is actually causing much suffering to people and to animals, and greatly accelerating the disappearance of animals from their habitats and from ours, and thus from the world.

For me, the ethical standard for caring for animals is simple: We must do the best we can for each animal for as long as we can. And then, we must recognize our own limits and the limits of society, and act accordingly, according to individual circumstance and conscience. There is no single ethical standard for animal life. We cannot say every horse in the world needs to work or every horse in the world does not, this is part of an almost sacred contract between society and the animal world, and the individual and his animal.

Arthur the horse was a victim of our muddled notion of animal ethics. Our notions of animal rights and welfare failed him in the cruelest possible way. He was ultimately doomed and abandoned by a system of animal care that often exists to make people feel better, but that leaves animals to an awful fate.”

ladycyon:

AKA: A Comprehensive Argument as to Why I Hate Cesar Millan:

Every one of Cesar Millan’s clients and fans has two things in common: they love their dogs and they don’t know the first thing about training them. An untrained dog in a household can be a burden and a pain, or even dangerous, depending on the dog. It’s only natural for these people to want to seek help for their problems so they can live in harmony with their pets. But Cesar himself poses an even greater danger to these unsuspecting clients and fans: bad training advice. Cesar Millan and his faulty theories are a danger to dogs and the public and should not be endorsed by a company – National Geographic – whose reputation is based on integrity and scientific fact.

It’s also only natural that these clients, with no training or knowledge of dog behavior would trust a dog-training TV program aired by National Geographic , a long-standing company with an impeccable reputation that few people bother to question But the problem with trusting blindly, is that even National Geographic makes mistakes sometimes. Such is the case when they decided to endorse Cesar Millan AKA The Dog Whisperer.

There are many reasons why his show would be appealing to those unfamiliar with animal behavior as a science. He’s charismatic, he exudes confidence, he always knows just what to do in any hairy situation, and most importantly, he solves problems quickly – which is exactly what fans and owners who don’t want to take the time and effort to train their dogs in the first place want – a quick fix. To the untrained eye, Cesar’s TV program might seem like a doggy miracle hour – out-of-control dogs with atrocious behavior problems turn into loving, obedient pets, all in the course of an hour. Clients are stunned! How on Earth does he do it?!

Anyone with a trained eye can tell you: he cheats.

Cesar Millan preaches a theory based on dominance and submission. He even creates his own language to describe problems dogs can have: Red zone dogs: aggressive dogs. Calm-assertive: what a good owner should be. Calm-submissive: what a good dog should be. In his book, he explains that there are two types of aggression in dogs: dominance aggressions, coming from dogs who are “natural leaders” and not being dominated by their owners properly and therefore become aggressive in an attempt to make up for their owner’s lack of leadership. The other aggression he describes is fear aggressions: in which fearful dogs behave aggressively as a means to repel things that they dislike – and for both of these problems, he offers the same solution: dominance.

He claims that most problem dogs simply don’t respect their owners enough and don’t receive proper discipline. He denounces people that anthropomorphize their dogs and shower them with affection, telling them they have it wrong. They do, but the problem is that, according to the current science of animal behavior, Cesar has it wrong too. This conjecture is supported the vast majority of experts in the field, many of whom are happy to help illustrate why:

The majority of Millan’s theories stem from research done on wolves “in the wild.” The problem with this is that for the majority of the last hundred years, up until 1975 (the year wolves gained endangered species protection from the government) it’s been difficult if not nearly impossible to find a wild wolf pack due to extensive efforts to eradicate the species. In an article featured by the Canadian Journal of Zoology, David Mech writes, “Most research on the social dynamics of wolf packs, however, has been conducted on wolves in captivity. These captive packs were usually composed of an assortment of wolves from various sources placed together and allowed to breed at will,” (Mech, 2). This meshing of random unrelated individuals created a very different social dynamic than those found in wolves in the wild; specifically concerning the occurrence of fights for dominance.

Adult wolves placed in a precarious social situation, will fight with each other, for control of food and resources, and – supposedly – rank in the pack, the strongest, most ferocious animals coming out on top. This is where the concept of an “alpha” wolf stemmed from, and what dominance trainers in the field today fall back upon when asked for a scientific basis for their methods. The problem with this is the fact that wolves in the wild do not form packs in this manner. Mech writes: “Rather than viewing a wolf pack as a group of animals organized with a “top dog” that fought its way to the top, or a male-female pair of such aggressive wolves, science has come to understand that most wolf packs are merely family groups formed exactly the same way as human families are formed,” (Mech). According to David Mech, who is the founder of the International Wolf Center, has studied wolves for 50 years, and has published several books on the topic, these family groups do not compete for dominance. The parents become the leaders of these groups, the pups following the parents naturally and learning from them. In other words, there are rarely, if ever, fights for dominance amongst wild wolves inhabiting the same pack. To base a dog training theory on this faulty concept of wolf behavior is bad science, yielding inaccurate and ineffective results.

The second problem with the wolf pack theory of dominance is outlined by Wendy van Kerkhove in her study on the social behavior of dogs: “It is further assumed that what is true for wolves also is true for dogs; it follows, therefore, that if a stable social hierarchy is established among the dogs in a family home, peace and tranquility will prevail” (Kerkhove, 280).

Unfortunately, as hundreds of years of evolution can tell us, dogs are not wolves. Nor does their behavior emulate that of their wild ancestors in any comparable way. This is because the dog is a domesticated animal – one we, as humans, have created for our own benefit and along the way, we have shaped them behave not like wolves, but exactly as we wish them to. If we want a companion to help us herd sheep, there is a breed for that. If we want a dog to bring back prey during a hunt, there is a breed for that. If we want a dog that will hunt rats underground, there is also a breed for that. We have even created breeds for cosmetic reasons – we’ve all seen a few purse dogs in our lifetimes. Thus, these hundreds of years of unnatural selection and selective breeding have resulted in a species that behaves very differently than its ancestral predecessors. As Alexandra Semyonova explains in her study of the social organization of dogs: “it seems reasonable to propose that the behavior of wolves and domestic dogs may differ as much as the behavior of chimpanzees and humans do” (Semyonova, 2) So if a dog is not a wolf, then why is Cesar Millan insisting upon treating them like they are? With better, more effective methods available, selecting this type of faulty methodology is nothing short of blatant irresponsibility. It is the job and obligation of the leading stars in any scientific field to promote the most recent and best supported science.

The uses of terms such as dominance and submission have a detrimental effect upon the general public and its view of how to behave towards dogs. Cesar further perpetuates this misconception by not only using them to explain dog behavior, but implements this faulty viewpoint into his training theory. What results is a lot of confusion for the dogs, potential danger for the owners, and a giant headache for behaviorists.

See, dogs are more like vending machines than wolves – you put the money in and if you push the right buttons a candy bar pops out. Their cognitive make-up consists of input and output: “If I do this, this will happen.” They learn through classical and operant conditioning – learning by association. In this sense, they are very much like human babies. Where they differ is in the ability to use reason. A dog does not have complex motivations for its actions It only knows “safe” behaviors – things that will not get them punished. And “unsafe” behaviors – things that they associate with punishment. A dog doesn’t understand why two things are associated, it only cares that they are. They learn best through operant conditioning, pairing a desired behavior with a subsequent reward. With this method, it is possible to train a dog to do practically anything through reward and repetition. This is about motivation. You wouldn’t go to work if you didn’t receive a paycheck, would you? And you’d probably work harder if you thought it might get you a Christmas bonus, right? Why should dogs be expected to work for free?

However, Cesar doesn’t use this method when he’s trying to “rehabilitate” dogs. He uses aversive tactics such as corrections when a dog fails to do what is asked for him (regardless of whether or not the dog understands what was asked) or techniques such as flooding or restraint to keep the dog in check. This isn’t behavior modification. This is behavior suppression. The dog will continue to engage in the undesired behavior when the owner isn’t around. The only difference is that the dog has now learned that acting in a specific way in the presence of the owner is “unsafe.”

Watch an episode of the Dog Whisperer and you’re likely to see examples of this supposed rehabilitation. It involves choking dogs out with their leashes when they react undesirably; it involves forcing a dog to confront objects or situations they’re desperately afraid of (a technique called flooding); it involves exercising a dog to the point of exhaustion so they simply do not have the energy to react negatively; it involves “alpha rolls” – a move in which he will flip a dog onto its back and pin it down belly up until the dog stops struggling. His reasoning behind this particular move is that this is what wolves do in the wild to assert authority. What he fails to inform the owners of is that wild wolves offer this behavior voluntarily, they aren’t forcibly pinned down. He also fails to realize or mention that the only time a true alpha roll occurs in the wild is when one wolf intends to kill the other. So an alpha roll for a dog involves being delivered a serious threat of intent to harm and a healthy dose of piss-your-pants terror. Not exactly the best way to build the dog’s confidence.

These aren’t training tactics, they are enforced submission; and from the viewpoint of the dog, they are terrifying to the point of being traumatic and damaging psychologically – further impounding the dog’s behavioral problems. Worst of all, they don’t work. None of these things will ever make a dog decide on its own to stop behaving the way it has learned to behave. In order to modify dog behavior, a new, more acceptable method of behavior must be taught. That cannot be done by manhandling one’s dog and forcing unpleasant things upon it. It involves real actual teaching, slowly and step by step. They must also be provided with a motivation to alter their current behavior. This is different for every dog, but common motivators are food and toys. If there is no motivation, no practical reason for the dog to perform the desired behavior, then training becomes less effective if not rendered entirely void. While aversive techniques may work in some instances for a short period of time, since the behavior has only been suppressed and not altered, it will not take long for the dog to revert to its old habits.

Cesar also fails to address the fact that all aggression in dogs stems from fear. There is no such thing as a dominant aggressive dog. Dogs behave aggressively as an outward manifestation of their lack of confidence. If dogs aren’t given guidance and direction and taught that things they fear will not hurt them, they will react aggressively whenever they are confronted by their object of fear and their threshold for stress is surpassed. Dogs react badly to other dogs because of past trauma, or because they misinterpret the body signals of the other dog, or because of simple fear of the unknown – some owners do not take seriously the task of dog-on-dog socialization in the critical early stages of life. Those that do not socialize their dog set them up to fail by marking all other dogs as something unfamiliar and therefore potentially “unsafe.” Dogs react aggressively towards people for similar reasons, with a lot more emphasis placed on misinterpreting our body language. Dogs are also highly superstitious concerning their associations and learning, thus, it becomes very easy for an unwitting owner to attempt to punish a dog for a bad behavior and for the dog to associate that punishment with something other than the owner intended. For example, slamming a door in the face of a dog attempting to run out of it might not achieve the desired result of causing the dog to fear running through the doorway. The dog may, instead, generalize its fear to include all doors, and not the actual act of running through the doorway – thus the behavior fails to be addressed or corrected and now, additionally, the owner’s dog is deathly afraid of doors. This is an incredibly easy mistake to make, even with the best trainers because timing an action and a consequence (positive or negative) is incredibly tricky and takes considerable practice. But the underlying, unspoken problem with this method in general is the use of fear or aversive techniques to insure behavior.

This means the dog is only doing things because it is forced to, or because it is afraid not to. And since we all agree that people seeking professional training advice do so because they love their dogs and would rather modify the dog’s behavior than give it up, we can assume that these people do not wish to inflict harm or undue stress upon their beloved pets.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what they’re doing when they turn to Cesar. Aversive and abusive techniques are Cesar’s specialty, though that’s not how he explains it on the show, that’s the magic of him having created his own language, it’s not abuse, it’s “dominance!” It sounds better that way, but only for us; certainly not for the dog. By taking advantage of his clients’ obvious lack of knowledge concerning behavior, he tricks them into believing he is solving their problems. And because they see him as an authority figure – he must know what he’s talking about, he’s on National Geographic channel, after all – these owners are more than happy to stand back and applaud as Cesar abuses their dogs to force them to behave in a way the owner finds acceptable. These people thank Cesar for his invaluable help when all he is doing is instilling in these peoples’ beloved fur-babies something called learned helplessness.

Learned helplessness is what occurs when a creature has decided that there is nothing it can do to help its situation and stops trying. It is a heartbreaking condition of abuse and defeat. In the legal system, we apply this term to the condition seen in long-term victims of domestic abuse and there are no positive connotations associated with the term. So do people really want a trainer that uses the same types of methods an abusive husband uses to dominate his wife anywhere near their pets? It wouldn’t seem so, but that is the seductive influence of Cesar Millan. He uses techniques that scare and hurt peoples’ pets right in front of their eyes and they still view him as a miracle worker.

He’s not. What he is is a fraud. If it weren’t for the blanketing effect of the unwavering endorsement of the trusted scientific authority National Geographic and the effect of social psychology, pet owners would see his harmful actions and not give him the time of day. But because National Geographic and Cesar himself portray Cesar as a trained professional, he is seen by the average viewer with no prior knowledge to be an excellent authority, and thus, they do not question him when he pins a person’s dog down despite the fact that the dog is writhing in fear and that in the long term, this traumatic action will have no positive effect.

So if Cesar’s methods are baseless, the public is left to wonder why National Geographic continues to endorse his show. The reason, sadly, is the same reason all other terrible shows are on the air: publicity and profit. Cesar makes a formidable amount of money from his clients, his books, and his show; and National Geographic gets to share the profits from that last source. They also gain viewership. However, that’s about all they gain. Why they would choose to stain their impeccable reputation by backing junk science is a mystery. In a response letter written by Andrew Luescher – a veterinary behaviorist whom National Geographic requested review Cesar’s show before it went on the air – begs the question: “The show repeatedly cautions the viewers not to attempt these techniques at home. What then is the purpose of this show? I think we have to be realistic: people will try these techniques at home, much to the detriment of their pets,” (Luescher, 1) he goes on to denounce the training methods utilized in the episodes and ends with a plea not to air the show: “My colleagues and I and innumerable leaders in the dog training community have worked now for decades to eliminate such cruel, ineffective (in terms of true cure) and inappropriate techniques,” (Lueshcer, 1). Indeed, Cesar’s methods seem to be causing quite a fuss among reputable dog trainers. Lueshcer is not alone. Among trainers an outcry can be heard – these people do not wish to be represented by Cesar, or his primitive, ineffectual training techniques. Nor do these professionals wish for his personal philosophy to be available to the public – a domain where faulty information can do significant damage in the hands of well-intending pet owners who don’t know enough to sort the good advice from bad advice.

Letters of denouncement of Cesar have poured in from many dog training professionals – Ian Dunbar, Karen Pryor, Pat Miller, Dr. Nicholas Dodman, and Dr. Suzanne Hetts – all long-standing and highly respected individuals in the field of animal behavior and dog training. They have all written to National Geographic with their concerns. Even organizations are weighing in. In a letter to the makers of flea control products that endorsed Millan, The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior states:”The American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB), the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB) and the Society of Veterinary Behavior Technicians (SVBT) have uniformly spoken out against the punishment-based techniques employed by Mr. Millan on his television show “The Dog Whisperer” (Meyer, et al., 1). With such strong letters and voices pouring in from so many sources, it seems impossible that National Geographic could so unceremoniously ignore and suppress this information. And yet, they continue to endorse Cesar and stand behind him and his show. This has become an issue of increasing concern for those who have dedicated their lives to this field and work every day to counteract the methods that Cesar teaches to his clients.

American Humane, too denounces the Dog Whisperer: “As a forerunner in the movement towards humane dog training, we find the excessively rough handling of animals on the show and inhumane training methods to be potentially harmful for the animals and the people on the show,” said the letter’s author, Bill Torgerson, DVM, MBA, who is vice president of Animal Protection Services for American Humane. “It also does a disservice to all the show’s viewers by espousing an inaccurate message about what constitutes effective training and appropriate treatment of animals” (Blauvelt, 1). This excerpt is typical of the letters National Geographic has received on the subject. In fact, it is difficult if not impossible to find a professional opinion of Cesar that does not include some sort of warning against imitating his actions in any situation. Most, in fact, warn that to do so could result in a dangerous situation for either the pets or the owners and may result in injury.

It’s pretty much unanimous across the board – Cesar’s way is not the way. There are very few – if any – professional trainers worth their salt who support or utilize his methods. But this cannot be said for the general public, who don’t have the benefit of years of training and experience available to help them spot the deception. This discretion should have been caught by National Geographic. They should have made the responsible choice not to further perpetuate punitive techniques that cause more harm than good. Obviously, National Geographic was made clearly aware of this discrepancy between methods deemed acceptable and what is presented in the show. And yet they decided to consciously ignore the advice they requested from multiple reputable sources, since the show was aired and remains on television to this day. National Geographic still owes the nation an explanation as to why they are ignoring good science in favor of sensationalism. But that is a question the entire dog training community is waiting for an answer to; in the meantime, it is the unsuspecting viewers and especially their pets that will continue to suffer.

Works Cited
Blauvelt, R. “Dog Whisperer Training Approach More Harmful Than Helpful.” Companion Animal News. Fall 2006. 23; 3, pages 1-2. Print.
Kerkhove, Wendy van. “A Fresh Look at the Wolf-Pack Theory of Companion Animal Dog Social Behavior” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science; 2004, Vol. 7 Issue 4, p279-285, 7p.
Luescher, Andrew. “Letter to National Geographic Concerning ‘The Dog Whisperer.’” Weblog Entry. Urban Dawgs. Accessed on Novermber 6, 2010. (http://www.urbandawgs.com/luescher_millan.html)
Mech, L. David. “Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs.” Canadian Journal of Zoology 77:1196-1203. Jamestown, ND. 1999.

Mech, L. David. “Whatever Happened to the Term Alpha Wolf?” Weblog Entry. 4 Paws Univeristy. Accessed on October 16, 2010. (http://4pawsu.com/alphawolf.pdf)
Meyer, E. Kathryn; Ciribassi, John; Sueda, Kari; Krause, Karen; Morgan, Kelly; Parthasarathy, Valli; Yin, Sophia; Bergman, Laurie.” AVSAB Letter the Merial.” June 10, 2009.
Semyonova, A. “The social organization of the domestic dog; a longitudinal study of domestic canine behavior and the ontogeny of domestic canine social systems.” The Carriage House Foundation, The Hague, 2003. 38 Pages. Print.