Whitewashing the Whisperer

It’s not often that someone uses terminology from behavioral science to describe what Cesar Millan, “The Dog Whisperer,” does on his television show. This is no surprise since Millan himself has no interest in doing so and is content with redefining words as he goes along. However, someone recently brought a blog post to my attention that actually does discuss one of Cesar Millan’s cases and attempts to place his techniques into a behavioral science context. Unfortunately the post seems to be more of an attempt to whitewash what is going on rather than provide an accurate description.

Here’s the first clip “Terrierman” refers to in his post:

(I encourage you to read his post and watch both clips.)

Terrierman refers to Cesar’s handling of JonBee as “habituation” and “extinction.” I don’t disagree with his definitions for the terms (well a little, actually), but I find his application of them confusing at best.

As he states, habituation is non-associative learning. The subject learns through repeated that a stimulus means nothing and stops responding to it. If you poke around the net you’ll see several examples: the feel of clothing on one’s body, the presence of another, non-threatening, species, a new ring tone on someone else’s phone.

The second link highlights an important point about habituation. It’s a very important adaptation because it helps organisms focus on what is important by filtering out unimportant stimuli. This where the “non-associative” part becomes critical – if the stimulus isn’t related to anything, than the response gradually declines until it is gone. This is not, as Terrierman describes, “facing the fear.” This is no longer reacting to something that is meaningless. One might be initially startled or surprised by an unexpected stimulus (such as the prairie dog’s reactions to humans in the second link.) But “facing the fear” implies a bit more than a simple lack of association.

So let’s look at what is going on in the video. During the intro we initially see a very happy looking dog, at one point lying on his back and being massaged by Scott and Patrice and clearly enjoying it. We do see Jonbee growling at the camera from behind a baby gate, but whether or not that represents the actual problem is not clear. The problem, we are told by Scott is “he won’t submit to me in the house.”

“we’re in the house, no matter what we’re doing, if he’s down and I try to turn him over — he’ll attack me.”

Wow. This needs to be addressed immediately, by any means necessary! (Sigh.)

Right off the bat, there’s an association here. Outside, any and all handling is fine. Inside it is not. I suspect that the association is even more specific than the location: the muzzle, Scott’s posture, and his actions actions prior to trying to roll Jonbee over, are likely part of what makes Jonbee react so violently. When Cesar first handles Jonbee inside we see him start to visibly stiffen and his ears go flat. Soon after, Cesar actually points out an association for us: “The muzzle created this. Notice?”

So how exactly is habituation useful here? It isn’t. This is not a situation that calls for habituation at all. It calls for counter-conditioning and desensitization. (If you don’t like my article try here, here and here.) The association Jonbee has with being handled in this particular context needs to be changed. As you might be able to tell from the links, this can take some time. Whether or not a dog needs to be euthanized right away for refusing to be flipped on his back in the living room is a decision you need to make for yourself…

Extinction is when a behavior decreases in frequency due to a lack of reinforcement. Most people tend to use extinction to refer to a behavior disappearing completely, but that’s rarely the case. Terrierman opines that Jonbee’s violent behaviors during the episode cease because Cesar doesn’t reinforce them. This assertion attempts to diminish, if not outright conceal, what is actually going on.

Before Cesar attempts to roll Jonbee the first time, he fits Jonbee with a makeshift choker fashioned from a leash, an addition to the chain choker that Jonbee was already wearing. During the entire time, and then later when he shows Scott how to handle Jonbee, he keeps both leashes high and tight. Is he choking Jonbee? No. But the leashes are clearly an aversive stimulus and when Jonbee struggles and tries to pull away, they do tighten and become less comfortable, perhaps even starting to apply pressure to the back of the head and neck.

This is called negative reinforcement: the application of a negative consequence until a behavior stops. There also undoubtedly a bit of positive punishment — the application of a negative consequence when a behavior does occur — going on during the conflagration too.

Habituation and extinction are an incomplete, to be charitable, explanation of what happened with Jonbee. Rather than simply habituating Jonbee to touch and teaching him that fighting for control is a waste of energy, Cesar did do what he set out to do. He got Jonbee to submit to being handled inside by continuously administering aversive stimulus with two chokers. Jonbee became exhausted and gave up.

Uh. Mission accomplished, I guess.