It's Me or the Dog has started up again. I was pleased to see that this episode featured six dachshunds (and three other dogs). One of the dachshunds, Oscar, was displaying classic dachshund "aggression".
After working with Kody so much, when I watch dog training TV my nonsense detectors are on high. I like Victoria Stilwell, but a few seasons ago she was trying to sell Cesar Millan techniques before coming over to the full positive training side of things. I fear this season she has regressed a little bit in that area.
While dealing with Oscar's aggression issues she was switching between using real proven positive training techniques and Cesar Millan techniques. She would do some good things, but then she would try to be firm and a little angry with a dog to stop him from aggressing at other dogs. All I know is that when Kody is scared being stern with him is only going to make things worse and lower his trust in me. On the other hand Victoria was using great techniques such as "look at that" (although she didn't call it that) which were working great. The Cesar Millan based techniques Victoria used with Oscar didn't really make sense, just like when Cesar uses them. They should watch the show and ask themselves, "Can people tell what the heck we're doing here?" If not, cut it out.
I was saddened that they were rushing the work with Oscar. Dogs don't become less fearful overnight and owners don't learn to deal with fear overnight. For me, learning how to even think about my dogs fear responses is still a struggle. With dachshunds, you're also dealing with instinctual behaviors rather than just plain fear. Victoria was trying to work with Oscar's human dad but she wasn't engaging him. She was mad because he was using his cellphone, but why wasn't he working with her? Why did he have a chance to use his cellphone? Victoria threw a little fit that wasn't really flattering. I think it was mostly for the cameras.
During one of the commercial breaks they presented a tip saying not to reward a dog when he's afraid. I feel this is classic bad dog advice and it's straight from Cesar Millan. First, my dog won't even take treats that are right in front of him when he's truly afraid, and I think that's probably true of most dogs. Second, people need to know what they should actually do when their dog is afraid, not what not to do. For instance, I could say, "Don't try to do the hula dance when you're dog is afraid." That's true, but it's not very helpful. When your dog is afraid, he needs to feel protected. He doesn't feel safe and it's your job to show him that you will always protect him when he needs it. So simply remove him from the situation to show him that he can trust you, then later after he's calmed down, take baby steps to work on the fear a tiny little bit at a time.
What's ironic about that commercial break blurb is that Victoria said just the opposite at another time in the show. She said:
When you stimulate a dog's appetite it gives them a feeling of pleasure, just as with a human, so you're replacing a negative feeling with a positive feeling.
Interesting... so which is it? Don't reward negative feelings with food, or do? Well, what Victoria said is right according to my trainer, food is a great tool to keep your dog feeling happy and it can combat mild fear when used correctly. She showed this many times throughout the rest of the show. I think the tip during the commercial was probably put in during post production by someone who wasn't really with the program.
I still really like Victoria. She's the closest thing we have to a really good trainer on TV. Oh, one more interesting thing, this season she switched to using the command "wait" instead of the command "stay". She went out of her way to correct someone who tried using "stay". I think this is because, as I learned in my first training class, "stay" is often reserved for longer time periods and sometimes requires touch to be released.