Peanut is "balanced"
Peanut is initially introduced as a chihuahua that “controls the household,” but then the rest of the lead-in focuses on how he “hates” Shelly’s brother-in-law, Mike. We see Peanut growling and snapping as Mike tries to touch Peanut, over and over again. (Sigh) We also see Peanut barking, growling, and whining…well, take a look for yourself.
Doesn’t it make you wish there was someone dog savvy enough on the set to figure out that shoving a camera in Peanut’s face was upsetting him?
Cesar Millan doesn’t like the way Mike looks at Peanut. (Maybe he’s a cameraman.) He feels that it reflects a lack of trust that Peanut can pick up on. While I think he’s making much ado about not very much in this particular case, it is an interesting point – especially coming from him. Our actions, both intentional and unintentional, do influence how dogs act. If only Cesar was a little more circumspect about his own actions.
Cesar Millan starts a segway into a lecture on “animal sense” and then gets up to approach Peanut and Shelly. Watch what happens.
Wow. What was going on for those first 10 seconds?
Cesar seemed pretty troubled with the chihuahua’s reaction when he approached and, quite predictably, refused to back down. On one level I can see his point – demonstrating to Peanut that displaying an aggressive behavior makes strangers go away can certainly increase the likelihood that he will display these behaviors. But does that mean that it was necessary to wade in and try to grab collar or do that obnoxious little finger poke thing? No, he could have simply stood his ground and then backed off when Peanut stopped.
This isn’t a subtle point. There is a difference between not rewarding unwanted aggressive behavior and punishing it. Both can, when done correctly, reduce or eliminate the unwanted behavior. But one of them risks escalating the aggression and/or creating even more undesirable associations. What starts as a dislike of strangers can quickly turn into a fear that strangers will try to poke you in the neck. No amount of experience, skill, timing, or Nielsen ratings makes one immune from this risk.
There’s a real head-scratcher at around 10 seconds into the video: “There you go.” He was trying to force the little chihuahu to retreat behind the cushions? Really? What exactly was that supposed to accomplish?
Cesar Millan then teaches Shelly how to correct Peanut for growling. “Physical touch” is a very nice euphemism (I guess one could say that Mike Tyson used to be a champion at physically touching people) but sugar-coating aside, he is teaching Shelly how to poke Peanut in the neck when he growls until he stops. Correcting a growl is never a good idea.
A growl is a warning. You might not like the warning, but that’s what it is. Punishing a warning does not fix the underlying problem. It masks it. Similar to Millan’s correcting Amalie for guarding a toy, correcting Peanut for growling doesn’t address the underlying problem. What’s to say that he won’t eventually skip the growl when he feels threatened and just go right to biting?
Take a look at the photo I used at the top and then at approximately 1:10 into the second video. Tight lips, stare, Peanut just looks tense. Are the corrections really changing his emotional response? I don’t think so.
Desensitizing Peanut to approaching people would consist of a few simple exercises involving finding out the specific trigger (Is it just men? Did Cesar take any time to find out?) and then using something he likes (probably food, at least at first) to gradually change his emotional response when they approach. This could be done by having the people approach slowly and stop well before Peanut reacts aggressively but when he is still aware that they are near. This is call sub-threshold. While Peanut is in this state, he is fed. Over time the distance that the people can approach will shorten. This is the same process described in the Baby Girl commentary.
Cesar’s really batting a thousand in this one, telling Shelly that it’s not enough to be calm around Peanut, she needs to be calm and assertive. I thought Shelly was actually on to something and deserved some praise for not panicking when Peanut is behaving aggressively.
Overall, Chihuahuas from Hell continues to be an example of why so many dog professionals dislike this show.
9 Comments
Spot on. These commentaries are all starting to sound the same but that's only because CM's misguided work is repetitively wrong in the first place!
You are right, they are getting repetitive. I want to finish this episode, because I said I would do whole episodes, and then think about changing my approach.
I have to say that from a non-dog trainer point of view it is very difficult to really know who knows what about dog behaviour (yep there's a 'u” in behaviour, I am Canadian =P).
I've never been big into dominating my dogs, rather just trying to let them know that I'm the guy that makes the rules and doing that without physicality or yelling at them.
I do like Cesar – as a guy, but I honestly don't know what is him, and what is reality tv when it comes to his training abilities and actual results.
I do like how you are able to read what the dog is feeling, and that can be seen when running the videos again watching the dog's body language and facial expressions.
Good series.
Thank you for the compliment. Ian is definitely someone to watch and read. I've learned a lot from him and it is a privilege to be involved with dogstardaily.com.
Cesar seems like a nice guy and there is no doubt that he cares deeply about dogs. But it's apparent at this point that people are taking what he does and says on this show as gospel for how to “rehabilitate” dogs. That's his responsibility, whether he accepts it or not. He really doesn't seem willing to, and whenever someone does try to question him (and it's really hard with his handlers around – his appearance in NJ was more managed than a Hannah Montana show) his response is worthy of a Senate race.
If there weren't books about “Cesar's Way” and “training collars” with his name on them he could hide behind the “I'm only a TV personality” defense, but he that's not the case.
I'm taking grief just saying that using the *word* punishment is acceptable, and he's showing people how to poke dogs in a “calm and assertive.” Yeesh.
Oh so very good. I just wrote an entire blog post titled “Growling is Good!” because of the very point you made above. The goal is NOT to make the dog stop growling, the goal is to help the dog feel like they don't NEED to growl anymore. Otherwise you're still nearing that bite threshold!
I love these articles on The Dog Whisperer, keep them coming! Found you via them at the Clicker Carnival.
Thanks! More coming, but the pace will slow down a little.
Interesting. I have watched this show for a little bit, and although it seemed good, when i try his techniques they dont seem to be working. I have Chihuahua who has a fear of my boyfriend. CM advice was to ignore the dog. (my boyfriend, not I) and to give it walks. FIrst, i take it on walks routinely, second, he's been ignorign the dog for three weeks and it still fears him! Im becoming more nad more frustrated. I dont want the dog any my boyfirned to ignore each other forever. That wasn't the purpose of getting the dog.
Interesting. I have watched this show for a little bit, and although it seemed good, when i try his techniques they dont seem to be working. I have Chihuahua who has a fear of my boyfriend. CM advice was to ignore the dog. (my boyfriend, not I) and to give it walks. FIrst, i take it on walks routinely, second, he's been ignorign the dog for three weeks and it still fears him! Im becoming more nad more frustrated. I dont want the dog any my boyfirned to ignore each other forever. That wasn't the purpose of getting the dog.
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