Dog Whisperer Commentary: Chihuahuas From Hell 1

By Eric Goebelbecker | Published: January 18, 2010

Nunu is not happy.

Well, I finally came across an episode that I just plain don’t like.

One of the “rules” I established for these commentaries is that I would accept what is shown on the show at face value. One of my frequent problems with what I see is not just what is happening, but why the producers (and at least implicitly Cesar Millan) decided to show it to us. I understand that drama sells and this drives at lot of the content, but after 5 1/2 years they must be aware that many people take the show very seriously and literally hang on Cesar’s every word and action.

This issue hit me full in the face when I saw “Chihuahuas from Hell.” But instead of wondering why a specific scene escaped the “cutting room floor,” I found myself wondering what the point of the much of the episode was. Other than a celebration of Millan’s macho posturing, I really couldn’t figure it out.

“Chihuahuas from Hell” starts with a retrospective of earlier chihuahua “cases” that Cesar has handled before introducing us to “El Diablo,” the most aggressive chihuahua yet! (Said with much gravitas and that scary electronic bass line that NGC loves so much.) I found the epiosde puzzling on a few levels. One of them is that a frequent defense of Cesar is that he has changed and become “more positive” over the years. If that’s the case, why are we seeing, in December of 2009 (that’s when I TIVOd it), a show with clips that date back to his first episode?

In addition to being puzzled by much of this episode, I have to confess I found it more than a little annoying — both the producer and Cesar Millan(as evidenced by his initial reaction to “El Diablo”) seem to think that aggressive chihuahuas are entertaining, even worthy of a bluesy “bad to the bone” montage. As a matter of fact,recent research indicates that chihuahuas is one of the more common breeds to bite, and the researchers theorized that the fact that people tend to take it less seriously may be one of the reasons why. (The show even mentions this at the beginning, but Cesar still finds the description of Diablo’s behavior amusing, and isn’t that montage kinda funny?)

Rather than tackle the entire episode at once, I’m going to break it down over a couple of posts. For one thing, there’s about two minutes of film toward the beginning that I could spend pages ranting about.

Nunu is a chihuahu that was rescued by Tina at the vet’s office where she worked. From her description, Nunu was always aggressive and bit people from the very beginning. We see Nunu’s case for a grand total of 1 minute, 25 seconds.

The first question that came to mind when it was over (well…after “That’s it?”) was what exactly was the point of that?

First, take a look at the photo above. Would you grab that chihuahu? Look at his eyes. Look at how stiff he seems. Let’s see what happened. (Note that the even the guy who does the warning graphics knew that this was dangerous.)

Honestly, where do I start? Why did Cesar Millan need to handle the dog? Here’s a hint about how I feel about that question: if your method of dealing with aggression involves getting bit, or even a moderately low chance of getting bit, there’s something wrong.

The original episode is not available on Hulu or National Geographic’s site, so I don’t know how long Millan held Nunu there. I guess, based on Cesar’s comment about “winning” (sigh), that we are supposed to think that it was until Nunu gave in. Let’s see what happened afterwards.

How does Nunu look to you? What do you think of Cesar’s explanation? “He is invited to live in your kingdom.” Does Nunu look like he feels like a welcome guest? Do you believe that after what sounds like years of aggressive behavior, one submission pin fixed it all? If it did, would you want that to be the basis for your relationship with your dog?

In case you missed Tina’s reaction:

“The most important thing I learned from Cesar is that I have to be more dominant with my dog rather than letting my dog dominate me in everything that I do in my life.”

It’s difficult for me to describe what I think should have been done differently. Under what circumstances (other than being forcibly pinned to someone’s leg) did Nunu growl and bite? Was it always when he was near Tina, or all the time? He may have been guarding her or the sofa, which one was it? Was there a resource guarding component and a handling issue or just one or the other? Without more information it’s hard to come up with specific recommendations. It all ties back to what was the point of that?

The answer, by the way, is the drama. That was the point. It’s a reality show.

More chihuahuas next week!

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Carrie Boyko

Might be more beneficial to review the original, full episode. These montages of clips don't tell the whole story. Nevertheless, I'd rather be reading about how you would handle a specific dog issue, than your distaste for Cesar's approach. Teach us something and we'll listen.

egoebelbecker

If you look at the other two reviews ( http://www.dogspelledforward.com/category/dog-w... ) you'll see that I did entire episodes, with what I would do differently and what I would do the same. A common complaint was that the posts were too long. That is why I tried this.
I think the fact that I wasn't able to come up with an alternative given the available information is part of the point. It's a reality show, and people try to glean training tips from it.

Tomorrow's commentary will have specific advice too.

cjanderson

Hi Eric, I agree with you on the issue of people who only do a very brief assessment based on a few minutes of observation. Nunu is the very first episode of Nat Geo's Dog Whisperer and is available to watch in the Season One episode which can be obtained from video rental sources like Netflix or even many libraries, Barring that, one can get a better explanation from the Dog Whisperer Season 1-3 Episode Guide, available from any Barnes and Noble, including the long term update by the owner. Then one would see that the humor being employed by Cesar was to distract the owner Tina who was very emotional, and whose human interaction/reactions was contributing to the reactions of Nunu.

As a 55 year old college teacher who has studied Cesar's way and successfully applied to around 45 literally last chance rescues, many of whom were literally next in the euthanizing line. Many of these dogs can be seen on my youtube site who are now well behaved and living in forever homes. My experience, is that those who are locked into a defined solution path are unable to see how Cesar's way can be successful. Challenge also explains why literally 100,000s of thousands of simple non-professional dog lovers from around the world who make the effort to study Cesar's way and work to apply it correctly and correctly in their lives, are so successful. They are open to new solutions without prejudice which guarantees their expected failures. Of course there will always be lots of people who think after watching a show for 15 minutes they have mastered everything they see and do not validate that understanding nor test the skill that is needed to go with it.

I have a (currently) 3100 member yahoo email list (where another over 20,000 have come in solved their problems and moved on from my high volume list, with open archives, filled with success stories.

To come back to the questions raised here - it WAS a clip episode, compiled from prior episodes to emphasize how people do not take the agression of small animals serious as they would if these were large dogs, which are frequently euthanized immediately for the same behaviors. Also in that episode, Cesar explained how people reward dogs aggressive behavior when they given in to it by backing away, or ignoring it, which many times creates escalating behaviors. His goal is demonstrate the consequences when people over estimate their canine knowledge and skills, and underestimate the dog’s agression. It is also important to remember that these dog cases being filmed are not only extreme cases, but cases in which local canine professions tried to change the behavior with no success, even to recommending the dog be euthanized as too dangerous. It is so unfortunate that these people would rather see that animal destroyed, then helped by solutions not from their paradigm.

If I use the word bike, and one thinks that I am talking about a bicycle instead of a motorcycle, not only do the techniques translate very well, but one could get hurt very badly from the misunderstanding. The sad truth is that most professionals are not willing to take the time or effort to understand the unique applications of these effective solutions.

Also, it is true that there is an entertainment feature to this show, which one can simply agree that there are different styles. I enjoy the approach while I study the technique – as have the other 23,000 past and present members of my email list alone.

If one watches the show with any regularity one will see many, many cases which take months of work, defining a consistent discipline which MUST be maintained after the Millan team has gone. There are follow up done months and years after by this team, shown at the end of the episode and also documentation available by owners in the Season 1-3 Episode Guide available at any main stream bookstore, created during Season 5.

Thanks for asking these really good questions, it is hard to cover all the areas in the short space of a blog but it is always wonderful to demonstrate why this show has been the number one show of the Nat Geo channel, but beyond that why the educational outreach of Cesar Millan and his Team have had such a profound affect on so many people around the world in such a short time, and for such a long time!

Sincerely and respectfully,
CJ

egoebelbecker

Thanks for commenting CJ. Fans of Cesar that have some experience and are willing to have a discussion seem to be rare online.

I'm aware it's a clip show. Someone at NGC decided to take five 20+ minute segments that were already heavily edited and cut them all down to 3 minutes or less. I'm making 2 assertions about that — it was a bad idea, and even as far as bad ideas go, it was poorly done. In 90 seconds we see Nu Nu behaving aggressively, we Cesar pin Nu Nu to his thigh, we see Nu Nu move across the room looking cowed, we hear that the problem is fixed.

People take this show very seriously. People imitate what they see on it. A graphic telling them to not try it at home may absolve NGC and Cesar of legal responsibility, but it doesn't absolve them of the moral one.

If you look at my other commentaries, Cesar came out looking a lot better because there was more there for me to hang my hat on. I'm approaching this as a TV viewer — that's who calls me and asks me why I don't use techniques.

That's also my answer for looking in depth at his techniques: the people who call me after trying what they saw on his show didn't look in depth. They saw him physically force the dog to do or not do something, they heard him say don't back down, and now they are in a power struggle with their dogs. I'm sure there is more to what Cesar does, but they don't know what it is. (And if you look at other online forums, you will see people use what they see on TV as proof that it all works.)

I am pretty familiar with the "traditional" techniques that much of what Cesar does resembles. I say the word "resemble" very deliberately, because he deviates wildly at times. Also, Koehler had a theoretical basis for much if what he did that mapped into behavioral science rather well at points. Cesar goes on and on about "energy."

Cesar has great people skills. Someone else would be in his timeslot if he didn't. In my "Bella" commentary I complimented Cesar on his coaching. There's still a post-it note on my desk with notes for me from that episode.

In my Baby Girl review I did cover a case that spanned at least 90 days. Again, I was less critical of Cesar, although I did think that his "virtual reality" rig was pointless and the 90 days of good socialization was what worked for her.

As I have said before, dogs are saved from euthanasia using other techniques too. The argument that only Cesar's techniques would have saved some dogs doesn't hold water. Dogs are saved daily using gentler techniques that have a firm basis in modern behavioral science.

Much of what Cesar does obviously works, but that doesn't make it right. Just because there is more than one technique, that doesn't make all of them right either. Efficacy should not be the only measure of whether or not a technique is acceptable. I'm going to come down on the side of a scientifically based and minimally aversive technique (in that order) every time.

Thanks again for stopping in. We're always open. :-)

I'm aware it's a clip show. Someone at NGC decided to take five 20+ minute segments that were already heavily edited and cut them all down to 3 minutes or less. I'm making 2 assertions about that — it was a bad idea, and even as far as bad ideas go, it was poorly done. In 90 seconds we see Nu Nu behaving aggressively, we Cesar pin Nu Nu to his thigh, we see Nu Nu move across the room looking cowed, we hear that the problem is fixed.

People take this show very seriously. People imitate what they see on it. A graphic telling them to not try it at home may absolve NGC and Cesar of legal responsibility, but it doesn't absolve them of the moral one.

If you look at my other commentaries, Cesar came out looking a lot better because there was more there for me to hang my hat on. I'm approaching this as a TV viewer — that's who calls me and asks me why I don't use techniques.

That's also my answer for looking in depth at his techniques: the people who call me after trying what they saw on his show didn't look in depth. They saw him physically force the dog to do or not do something, they heard him say don't back down, and now they are in a power struggle with their dogs. I'm sure there is more to what Cesar does, but they don't know that. (And if you look at other online forums, you will see people use what they see on TV as proof that it all works.)

I am pretty familiar with the "traditional" techniques that much of what Cesar does resembles. I say the word "resemble" very deliberately, because he deviates wildly at times. Also, Koehler had a theoretical basis for much if what he did that mapped into behavioral science rather well at points. Cesar goes on and on about "energy."

Cesar has great people skills. Someone else would be in his timeslot if he didn't. In my "Bella" commentary I complimented Cesar on his coaching. There's still a post-it note on my desk with notes for me from that episode.

In my Baby Girl review I did cover a case that spanned at least 90 days. Again, I was less critical of Cesar, although I did think that his "virtual reality" rig was pointless and the 90 days of good socialization was what worked for her.

As I have said before, dogs are saved from euthanasia using other techniques too. The argument that only Cesar's techniques would have saved some dogs doesn't hold water. Dogs are saved daily using gentler techniques that have a firm basis in modern behavioral science.

Much of what Cesar does obviously works, but that doesn't make it right. Just because there is more than one technique, that doesn't make all of them right either. Efficacy should not be the only measure of whether or not a technique is acceptable.

I'm going to come down on the side of a scientifically based and minimally aversive technique (in that order) every time.

Thanks again for stopping in. We're always open. :-)

Anne

Hi Eric, Just discovered your blog and am enjoying it. I agree with you that it is easy to get the wrong message from a TV show - which is why I prefer reading Cesar's books. I wonder if a lot of the confusion (that I read from the comments) is on the distinction between "dominant" and "violent". I am dominant to my children AND my dogs; I am the boss, they know what my expectations are and they have clear, consistent boundaries. I would never be violent toward them, and in fact I can imagine if one of them tried to bite me that I would behave very much like Cesar did in that clip. i.e. restrain them so that they couldn't hurt me and give them time to calm down. :-)

I don't like, though, to compare my relationship with my children to the relationship I have with my dogs. Primates are very different from canids (lots of great literature on wolves, coyotes, wild dogs, free for the reading via Google Scholar). After studying and teaching animal behavior for over two decades (although my specialty is birds, so take what I say with a grain of salt!), my sense is that many of the problems humans face with animals is when they anthropomorphize them - this is true for pets and wild animals both. If people would just *watch* their dog (or cat or parrot or...) and see how it reacts and responds in different situations, I think there would be far fewer behavioral problems. Thanks for a thoughtful post, I will be visiting again!

Anne

egoebelbecker

Thanks for commenting Anne. I'm happy to see more differing viewpoints here.

As I said to Tina, in dog training circles the world dominant comes with lot of overhead. One of the reasons it has "fallen out of fashion" with many trainers is because much of the research that lead us to believe that gray wolves lived in rigid hierarchal packs has fallen into question. Wolves live in family packs that are lead by the breeding pair, not the biggest and strongest wolf. And for the most part, of another wolf doesn't like it, (s)he leaves and starts another pack. David L. Mech has written about this extensively and there is a lot of information about it online.

Also, dogs are not wolves. I say that a lot. :-)

If there was a situation in which I thought my son might become violent, my solution would not be to create that situation, restrain before he could hurt anyone, wait for him to give in, and then declare the problem fixed. That would be silly.

I would also not immediately assume that the only possible cause for his violent tendencies was a failure on my part to clearly and consistently remind him who is the boss. While it is a possible contributing factor, and I do know that some parents don't have enough control over their children (Cesar's fans *love* that analogy), there just might be another explanation for it.

I wrote something about anthropomorphism on my blog over at Dog Star Daily this week: http://www.dogstardaily.com/blogs/what-anthropo...

tinamadden

Hello there,

I am Tina and that is my dog Nu Nu. This episode was the first episode ever filmed for the show and you can find the full length episode on you tube..just type in Cesar and Nu Nu in the search. There have been two other shows filmed about us as well. One was an episode on how Nu Nu was a great dog now and how his aggression was gone. The second was how life changing this experience was for me.

Let me start by saying that basically what you saw on the episode is what happened except for a few stops and starts because I live on a busy street and the crew was not all that high tech yet so noise was a factor. The other reason we stopped was when Cesar needed a bit of assistance finding the right words as his English was not the best. Other than that, you see pretty much what we experienced. This entire experience was very life changing for me, Nu Nu as well. He is happy, healthy and balanced these days and lives an exceptionally wonderful life. What I learned that day has taken me in so many new directions in my life and taught me how to live in the moment not just with my dog but with everything in my life.

I went on to work for Cesar about a year and a half after the episode was filmed. Nu Nu and I spent 2.5 years at The Dog Psychology Center of Los Angeles where I went from doing office work to assisting Cesar with his existing pack as well as dogs who came in for rehabilitation. In that time, I watched Cesar work with many many dogs, dogs that not too many people would even give a chance let alone put their hands on. He was amazing with these dogs, aggression is his thing and I saw many of dogs that I was terrified when I got there turn into kind loving, gentle and most importantly balanced dogs. I could be feeding the pack filet mignon and Cesar would walk through the door and the pack would leave me and go to him...they did not do that with anyone else who happened to show up at feeding time. I will say that I support Cesar and his methods and believe that he is a truly gifted person.

Thanks for listening.
Tina Madden

egoebelbecker

Thanks for stopping by and commenting Tina! I'll take a look at Youtube for the whole episode. I generally don't like to link to large videos of copyrighted material on Youtube because they tend to be taken down after awhile and it makes my site look sloppy.

The short clip of you in "Chis From Hell" is poorly edited. It makes it look like Cesar pinned Nu Nu for a few second or so and "Voila!" he was no longer aggressive. I think it's misleading, and it's all about making Cesar look like a miracle worker on TV.

While it's not uncommon for one visit from a professional to make a tremendous difference, it's just not that simple. You yourself said both on the show and here that your point of view was changed, and that makes a tremendous difference - but not overnight.

The word "dominance" is a loaded term, especially in dog training circles. It was before the DW show, and the show has only made it worse. I think it's possible to be a leader to your dog(s) without viewing the relationship as an ongoing, constant, struggle for control. Cesar's language continually positions things that way. I sometimes wonder if it is a language issue (my father and my wife are both from Germany, so I am sensitive to this) but he's had quite a few years to take a step back, listen to his critics, and maybe rephrase things - but he's doesn't seem interested in doing that.

I'm happy that you have found a new direction for your life and very happy that you didn't let someone convince you to put Nu Nu down. I do understand that Cesar has helped many dogs. What I don't agree with however, is that his methods are the only way to help some dogs. I have literally learned at the feet of people who have been helping dogs for much longer than he has, using much gentler methods.

Thanks again for stopping by. It was very open-minded and nice of you to do so.

Amy@GoPetFriendly

Perhaps, Eric, I could introduce you to my father. :-)

Bloggie Stylish

i watched that episode, too. and yes, that chihuahua was a pretty miserable beast. I do like some of the stuff that cesar does. one of my favorite messages of the show is to establish that you are the leader in the house and NOT the dog. i don't necessarily aggree with all of his methods, but ultimately your dog has to respect YOU and YOUR commands. Respect is gained by consistancy and the clarity of expectations. If you don't get respect you'll get bad behavior.

With small toy dogs, too many people dismiss aggressive behavior as cute. Some folks are just plain afriad to disipline a small dog for fear of hurting it. why, i don't know. toy dogs are some of the most miserable dogs that i know and for some reason, it's usually yorkies. I worked in a very posh area of toronto where a lot of owners would bring their dogs into the store. Giant great danes, pit bulls and bull mastiffs, no problem. yorkies and chihuahuas, watch out if you accidentally got too close to their owners!

What i would really like to see is what happens when the cameras are off and cesar leaves. remember that episode with patti labelle and her boerboel? show appeared to be a success, right? well, i got it on good authority from a breeder in the boerboel community that the dog was destroyed a few months later due to it's aggressive behaviors.

anyways, enough ranting! good post and i look forward to reading more about it.