Today I saw the most awesome episode of The Twilight Zone. I'll warn you now, this post has spoilers. However I doubt many of you are hiding from spoilers about old black and white TV shows.

The episode was about a hunter who loves his dog. One day they went out hunting together and were tricked into a pond by a raccoon. They woke up on the side of the pond a little while later.

As they headed back home they ran across two men burying a dog in the hunter's pasture. The hunter was upset that they were ignoring him but then left them alone when he found out they were burying a dog. He figured they were too distraught to talk.

You can see where this is going. You may get it, but the hunter didn't and was confused as to who's casket they were carrying out of his house.

As the hunter wandered his property he ran into a fence he didn't recognize. He followed it until he approached a man who greeted him. The man said he was Saint Peter and welcomed the hunter to heaven. But the dog was not comfortable. Saint Peter said dogs weren't allowed in this section of heaven and couldn't come in. He said there was a dog heaven down the road and he would take the hunter's dog there for him.

The hunter argued for a while and decided not to enter heaven without his dog. A decision all dog lovers totally get.

The hunter wandered down the road and ran into another man. This man knew his and his dog's name and welcomed them both to heaven. The hunter asked if this new man was Saint Peter and the man said he was just a regular angel.

The hunter asked the angel about the other guy and the angel said that guy was always trying to trick people even up to the last minute. The angel said the other guy wouldn't allow dogs because dogs can't be fooled like people and can smell the brimstone. They'll always guide their humans to safety.

The angel confirmed that the hunter's wife would be safe when she arrived and led him and his dog into heaven.

It was such a touching episode. I want Kody with me when my time comes. I had another dog named Mozart when I was young and I hope he's there too. I'm not a very religious person, but when it comes to dogs, I'm a believer!

Every time Animal Planet comes out with a new show about dogs, I watch and hope that it will be a show that provides people with some valuable truths about dogs and information people can actually use. Unfortunately, Animal Planet concentrates much more on ridiculous entertainment than on the actual animals.

I watched the premier of the new show, Pit Boss, which involves a talent agency that promotes little people run by Short Rossi who also rescues pit bulls, I think. I liked the premise a lot, it seemed like a fun show and the people are very likable right off the bat.

The show was going along okay, and then Shorty got a call to have one of his pitbulls in some sort of calendar. The dog would need to sit up, which required training. Then Shorty assigned this task to one of his employees who would learn how to do it from an animal trainer they had hired.

Strike One: If you don’t even know how to train a dog to sit up, which has to be one of the easiest things to do, then I don’t have faith that you can run a pitbull rescue. How do you get an aggressive pitbull to drop the aggression and be normal? Positive training.

I continued watching and Shorty got a call to come pick up a loose pitbull. He went to get it and everything just felt fake. First they took only a minimal amount of caution when picking up this dog and everything just felt wrong. It was very convenient that the dog had “escaped” inside of a fenced in area and was not much of a runner because otherwise it would have made it very difficult for little people to catch him. I would think Shorty would have an average sized person to help him out in these situations where speed is required.

The approach the took to finding the owner was that they expected someone to personally know who owned the dog. They were wandering the streets and Shorty was calling friends that lived in the neighborhood. Strike Two: this feels very fake.

Eventually on another bizarre attempt to find the dogs owner, they go back to the neighborhood. The actual owner apparently sees them from afar and starts screaming from across a lot that Shorty has stolen his dog and comes running over and shoves shorty to the ground. That’s right, he stole your dog and is now wandering around with cameras following him. Not only was it clearly a set up (because if it wasn’t this would have been assault on camera) but the dog at this point has a choke collar on. The collar was purchased and placed on the dog by Shorty.

Strike Three: Choke collars are actually a leading cause of pit bull euthanasia. The use of choke collars actually causes pit bulls to become aggressive. Don’t take my word for it, read about it from a professional dog trainer.

I turned off the episode at that moment and removed the season pass from my TiVo. Let’s recap:

• Shorty doesn’t know how to train dogs which is a major part of rehabilitating pit bulls.
• The drama in the show is obviously fake and doesn’t even make sense.
• Shorty says he’s running a pitbull rescue but uses choke collars, a leading cause of aggression and euthanasia for pit bulls.

I suppose maybe they will show Shorty’s rescue facility in future episodes, you had to take on faith that he actually has one for this episode. But as far as I could see his rescue facility was a small crate in his offices. But I wonder, does he really have a rescue at all? It’s too bad that this is yet another fake reality show because a real opportunity has been missed.

One thing bugs me, and that’s that although Victoria doesn’t train like Cesar Millan, she’s started talking like him. This has been a common theme on all the episode this year. She says things like your dogs need to respect you and you need to be the leader. You could find a way to make these phrases fit good training, but really dogs don’t have a concept of respect. Basically they respect what gets them good stuff. If you want “respect” from your dog, carry bacon and give it to her. If you’ve seen the movie As Good As It Gets maybe you remember the scene with the dog and the bacon.

I personally don’t believe dogs have a strong concept of a leader, but what concept they do have almost any owner fits. You feed them, protect them, take them to pee and poo and control just about everything. Don’t worry, your dog definitely sees you as a “leader” as much as they have a concept of that. Dogs do “crazy” things for two reasons: they are following their instinct or because they are rewarded for those things (or both).

When it comes to training, I’m getting better. As I learn I see the ways in which I have rewarded some of Kody’s undesirable behaviors. But it can be tricky, because I also see the ways in which my desire not to reward behaviors has backfired.

I can’t totally explain it, but I have recently almost completely extinguished some of Kody’s barking at the slider by rewarding it. Ignoring the behavior, in this case, actually makes it much worse. I’ll tell you exactly what I’ve been doing.

It used to be that Kody would bark at something out back and he would get fixated on it. I knew timeouts would probably work for this, but the behavior didn’t happen often enough to keep a leash on Kody. I had seen my trainer do a type of thing where she rewarded bad behaviors before, so I decided when Kody would bark I would try saying, “What’s going on? Thank you for letting me know.” Then I would walk over to the slider and take a look at what was going on making it very obvious to Kody that I was doing so. We would be there together looking. I would make some positive statements in a positive voice, like, “Oh yes, there’s ducks out there, we like ducks, that’s really great.”

Well, that’s it, and it works. I’m guessing Kody’s instinct was to tell the other dogs or people that there was an intruder. When I ignored him, he felt compelled to continue to monitor the situation. But when I listened, investigated myself, and approved of the situation, he felt the situation was done and could move on. Now when he sees things out back, even squirrels, his behavior is much more mellow, but I’m still sure to take note and thank him.

Okay, I got a little off track, but my point is that Kody’s undesirable behavior was most likely not because he didn’t “respect” me, or because he didn’t see me as the “leader”. It was the opposite of that, and the fact that he was following his instinct. I started acting like Kody expected me to act, and all of a sudden he became comfortable.

Now, while this has worked the honest truth is I’m not exactly sure why. I can guess at Kody’s motivations all I want, but I will never know fully what he’s thinking or feeling. However I can say that in my search to find positive ways of training I am succeeding and both Kody and I are much happier for it.

As for Victoria Stilwell, I don’t know why she’s quoting Cesar Millan while teaching better methods, but just ignore what she says and pay attention to what she does and I think you’ll be better off. This was a good episode.

Advice shows can be an interesting and fun way to show first hand what can be accomplished with good methods on any topic. But then the ratings get in the way, and the shows can easily stop showing anything useful or even factual at all.

This episode of It’s Me or the Dog was the worst kind of reality TV. It was the kind where they get some people doing incredibly crazy things, put them in front a camera, make fun of them, and tell them off. For this episode, they found four women who lived in a house together, didn’t take care of their dogs at all, let them pee and poo all over the house and didn’t even clean it up.

Very few of us are that messy, so this show isn’t really useful to us at all unless we just enjoy making fun of people. I don’t. So for me, it’s a whole show wasted.

What little training they had actually reduced my opinion of Victoria Stilwell as a trainer. It seems she does not know how to lure a dog into a sitting position. This is the first thing you learn if you go to a dog training class and it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. Not only does it teach sit faster, but it sets up a whole way of thinking for the student that they can use for future training.

I’m bummed out, and a little disappointed in Victoria Stilwell. I’m realizing that a person who was really good at dog training and also has integrity would never be able to survive in the world of television. It’s too bad, because there is so much information that could help people.

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.

I felt Michael was in fact just trying to say the right things in his 60 Minutes interview. While I believe he feels regret, I don’t think he feels it about the animals. He was kind of trying to rewrite history. He said he should have stood up and been a “leader” and stopped the dog fighting. That’s a very finessed statement. Because it makes it sound as if he regretted the fighting while he was doing it. And he said it such a way that James Brown, the interviewer, did not question him on that. However, I have a firm belief that Michael Vick did not feel bad at all during that time. It’s fairly obvious. If you feel bad about electrocuting dogs, chances are that you’re not going to do it again.

The interview was a softball interview presented in a hardball way. The questions were like, “Do you really regret what you did?” as opposed to, “How do you get to the point where you enjoy electrocuting dogs?” So not really hardball.

The guy from the Humane Society answered my main question, which is “Is it OK for Michael Vick to be out of prison and pretending to regret his actions?” The answer is yes. Here’s why. I’m quite sure Michael Vick will not re-offend. I’m also quite sure that he is motivated to campaign against dog fighting as hard as if he really means it. So it doesn’t matter if he’s still evil, the best possible thing is happening. This is better than if he were in jail, because he’ll be helping to stop dog fighting.

Do I like Michael Vick? No I don’t. Do I forgive him? Not really. Do I believe he has really changed inside with respect to the humane treatment of animals? No.

But it doesn’t matter, because he’s being forced to do the right thing now. That’s a “prison” I can get behind. I really do hope that over the years Michael Vick learns to appreciate the animals he works with. I hope he does experience both true regret and true love for dogs. Everyone needs to understand what it means to love an animal. Unfortunately I also know it may not be possible for him to feel that, which is sad.

First, instead of praising a dog with “good sit” or “good wait”, she often praises with a generic “good dog”. She’s missing out on a chance to further reinforce the command.

Second, she will repeat the command instead of repeating the praise. So out of one side of her mouth she says don’t repeat commands and then you see her saying, “wait… wait… wait…”. Repetition is necessary to help a dog add duration to a command. But repeating the praise, “good wait”, let’s the dog know he’s still doing the right thing and should continue until you release. You’re just repeating the praise, reassuring the dog he’s doing good. You’re not repeating the command which will confuse a dog, possibly making him think he’s somehow not doing he right thing right now.

Third, she doesn’t put the dog’s name before the command. It’s better to always give a command like, “Kody sit”, “Kody wait”, or “Kody down”. It has the benefit of the dog knowing who you’re talking to if there are multiple dogs or if you ever decide to adopt another dog.

Fourth, she doesn’t use an official release. Especially for commands with duration like wait, your dog needs to know when it’s ok to stop. This is why you use a release, which is generally, “okay”.

So a good example of a full cycle of communication for an extended sit and wait might be “Kody sit… good sit… Kody wait… good wait… good wait… good wait… okay!”

The Good

Victor takes Victoria on a walk and the pit bulls are pulling like crazy. She asks how he is walking these dogs and without mentioning any names he shows exactly Cesar Millan’s method of leash tugging. She smiles knowingly and says, “Uh huh… well it doesn’t appear to be working does it?”

Victor’s experience was similar to mine in that Cesar Millan’s method seemed to be making his dogs anxious and actually pull more.

The Bad

As usual, Victoria shows her gentle techniques to make the dogs sit and wait at the door, and Victor is clearly amazed at how easy it is. But when they are on a walk, Victoria at one point waits 20 minutes for one of the dogs to offer her a sit. This was strange because there is a gentle, no-touch way, to make a dog sit that doesn’t take 20 seconds usually. I’m pretty sure Victoria knows this. I didn’t understand why she was waiting there 20 minutes for a sit. It certainly wasn’t that waiting in this case would make for better training. I have no idea what she was doing.

The Lovely

As always, it was an enjoyable episode. They even managed to slip in a minor “Victor Victoria” moment for us to enjoy. Victoria Stilwell remains the Mary Poppins of dog training.

But the interesting thing was that they used the “leave it” command almost in the way the woman from the walk (see related story) suggested to me. However, it didn’t seem to work too well. Maybe I’m just being stubborn, but bear with me.

They taught the “leave it” command in the usual way and the dog did great. The dog ignored a close up interesting treat or object in return for another interesting treat or object. Perfect.

But then for some reason Victoria was using this for far away objects, or even concepts, the dog was interested in. This brings up a very good question. What exactly does the leave it command mean? Does it mean, don’t touch that thing? Does it mean look at me? Does it mean ignore whatever you’re currently thinking about? It seems like when the dog did well, the command meant, “Don’t touch that thing.” But later Victoria tried changing the meaning to, “Ignore whatever you’re currently thinking about.” But that’s a very weird command, and a concept I’m not sure dogs will be entirely successful with, as indicated by what happened on the show.

The best moment came when the Mom was trying to do some exercises without Victoria present. She finally just said sit and held a treat for him to focus on. This is excellent, and it worked much better that “leave it.”

Dogs are very good at following commands which have a clear physical meaning and are not conceptual. Drop it. Sit. Down. Stay. They are not so good at commands like: Do anything but sit. Do anything but bark. Don’t look over there. Don’t worry about whatever you’re thinking about.

When the owner gave Peanut Butter a sit command she knew exactly what to do. She didn’t interpret sit as, “don’t pay attention to that”. She interpreted it as sit. And that’s a very easy thing to understand and do. It accomplishes “don’t pay attention to that” quite nicely but the dog doesn’t know that.

On our walk the other day, Kody didn’t interpret “right here” as don’t bark, but it accomplished that. Progressive trainers will always tell you. When your dog is doing something you don’t like, figure out what you want them to do and do that. It just works.

It’s Me or the Dog: Stains

Now I’m pretty sure a shelter would normally clip a dog like that. I wonder why they didn’t this time? It’s just a guess, but could it be because the Underdog to Wonderdog producers asked them not to? Did they put a dog through nine days of pain to make this show?

But it doesn’t end there. After telling us how bad this matting situation is, the woman goes to groom him. She says:

The first thing I want to do is give Oliver a hygienic groom. I don’t need to do the haircut right now, that can wait.

She’s apparently concerned about time. If you took this dog to any groomer, it would probably take an hour to groom him properly. But I don’t think she’s concerned about time, or the dog’s welfare. She’s concerned that if she does a proper groom on this dog the dog won’t stay ugly enough for us to feel sorry for it. And then there won’t be that “makeover moment” for later in the show.

So instead of shaving him, she starts brushing out the mats, feces and all, which is probably painful. With the cameras there, how long do you think this took? Probably four hours at least, right? It makes that one hour groom and clip look pretty good for the poor dog.

What a disappointment. I recommend you don’t watch this show.

OK, this show is sweet and nice, and has a message that’s great. Saving dogs is a wonderful thing. Nobody can criticize that. Having said that, you can criticize everything else about the show. It’s ridiculous.

The show is basically Queer Eye For The Straight Guy meets rescue dogs. The only difference is Queer Eye was kind of good. The cast is huge and is composed of racially diverse hot models that are often posing for the camera. Here’s my surprised look! Here’s my model laugh and hair toss! Here’s me feeling sad, but not too sad! Here’s my Abercrombie & Fitch high five with my bro! “Go dude!”

So this team is on a mission, find a rescue dog, then give it a makeover and find it a family stat! OK guys, here we go! We found the dog, doesn’t he look awful? He’s even got pneumonia! I mean, that’s sad. But anyway, at some point we have to take him to the doctor, but first lets take him to a fancy hotel suite (I’m not kidding) and get him a massage. He needs to be shaved because he’s matted, but that would take away from the makeover we’re doing later so let’s just brush him and give him a bath. Hey! Nothing’s better for a dog with pneumonia than taking a bath and going on a nice long walk! Dude! Right on, high five!

OK, let’s take him to the vet. Guess what! He’s got pneumonia! Dude, that’s a bummer. But we already knew that, why are we taking him to the vet again? High five, bro!

We found a family with a nice house, four very young kids (one of whom has special needs), and a dog, and that dog has shyness and fear issues. What they really need is another dog! Dude! That’s awesome!

Dude, build him a really kick ass dog house, because that’s what a dog like this needs. Thank God you’re part of the team. We’d never be able to do this without you! By the way, your pecs look great, been workin’ out bro? Wicked!

OK, see if he knows any commands like sit, down, or stay. What? He doesn’t? Oh my gosh, we’ve got our work cut out for us. Will our professional trainer be able to teach him in only two weeks? He’s the calmest dog ever, so it’s going to be pretty hard. Luckily we’re not going to teach the new owners anything, so that will save us some time!

Dude, it’s time for the makeover. Will our professional dog groomer be able to do anything with him? I don’t know. Oh my gosh, she gave him a short cut with the clippers just like we should have done on the first day! Dude, who would have guessed? OK, when you see him everybody scream in disbelief! I’m so surprised I have to flip my hair and smile! Wink! Bro, high five!