Last week on It's Me or The Dog Victoria Stillwell visited one of my favorite actresses, Nicole Sullivan. I loved her on Mad TV.
But there's an interesting moment where again Victoria speaks out against Cesar Millan's methods, like so many other trainers are these days.
Victoria: What sort of training styles have you done, have you had trainers before?
Nicole: This guy came in from a certain camp, he said, "Well you need to be the alpha dog." And so it was a lot…
Victoria: But you're, wait a second, you're a human, you're not a dog.
Nicole: Yeah…
Cut to Victoria speaking to Camera:
The training that Nicole has received with her dogs before from trainers, um, is very much of the pack theory, alpha based, you've got to be dominant over your dog kind of methodology. That's very old style training and has been shown to be flawed in many many areas.
A number of times this season Victoria has gone out of her way to make it quite clear that she does not approve of Cesar's methods. I'm glad, because we need informed trainers to speak out about it. I think by not mentioning his name, yet still making it clear what exactly is being talked about, Victoria's doing a good thing.
Cesar Millan may, and probably will change his approach sometime soon. He's also not the only advocate of dominance theory, so there's no need for Victoria to criticize him by name.
Ooh, thanks for the list, I’ll check those people out. After watching Cesar Millan, I like Victoria because I don’t feel she is very likely to make someone hurt their dog. So I think of Victoria as entertaining, potentially helpful, and definitely harmless.
Although I’ve written about some of the things I don’t like about her, I wouldn’t feel scared to recommend people watch her show. Especially people who won’t do anything else.
Interesting post!
I’m glad to see that Victoria is speaking out against CM. It’s time that people start seeing how many better ways there are to train dogs than with dominance theory and pretending to be the alpha dog.
Besides, training with dominance and aggression can be downright dangerous! I blogged recently about a research study done at UPenn that showed aggressive and dominant dog training methods resulted in more aggressive dogs. Why people can’t seem to understand this, I’m not sure. You might be interested in it, it’s here :http://stalecheerios.com/blog/2009/03/aggressive-training-methods-and-aggressive-dogs/
cheers,
Mary H.
Victoria: What sort of training styles have you done, have you had trainers before?
Nicole: This guy came in from a certain camp, he said, “Well you need to be the alpha dog.” And so it was a lot…
Victoria: But you’re, wait a second, you’re a human, you’re not a dog.
People. I can’t believe this needs to be said. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A DOG IN ORDER TO LEAD ANOTHER DOG. To say that you must be a dog in order to be respected and followed by other dogs is just complete and utter nonsense.
The way a dog sees it, all humans are essentially “dogs”. All we are to them are two-legged, furless, dogs. True we definetly act and look way different than them but they are incapable of comprehending that we humans have an entirely different psychology than theirs. Whether we like it or not, our dogs will either see us as their Pack leader or they will assume the position themselves. The pack mentality is a fundamentall part of their being. And to ignore that and say that taking the “alpha dog” position is outdated and ineffective is just plain stupidity.
Most dogs are born to be followers and are uncomfortable and unhappy if they have to be the leader. And if the owner doesn’t take that position which is rightfully his/hers as the caretaker and feeder, the dog will be forced to take the leadership position causing confusion which leads to behavior issues.
We had a dog that looked exactly like Nicole Sullivans white dog. We thought he was a dalmation & border collie mix, but never knew for sure. Any idea on the breed mix of her dog?
Is this the dog you’re thinking of? It looks like it’s part Border Collie, but I’m no expert.
Yes, Her dog’s name was Donut. Such a dead-ringer for the dog we had it almost made my wife cry.