“I’m taking over, I’m becoming his protector, I want him to trust”
Cesar Millan has been getting beaten up by people on the positive reinforcement side of training – but the message has been lost, changed to something that is totally off the wall. People watch Cesar Millan videos, and try to replicate. Sometimes successful, but watching and understanding are 2 different things. One big issue with Cesar, he doesn’t explain what he does very well. Whether that is done on purpose or not, I’m not sure. So lets take Buddy the Pit Bull Terrier, only 3 minutes of video – and look at exactly what he’s doing and why.
Buddy is frustrated, he’s learned to be insecure, he’s learned to be aggressive because nobody has ever shown him a different way of being – he’s figured out that on his own. People think they protect their dog by removing them from bad situations, that’s not protecting, that’s making it worse. From my perspective, dogs typically adopt a “plan A”, and they aren’t great at coming up with plan B, they need to be shown plan B. Reward can be negative or positive, that’s not on the dog – humans respond well to negative reinforcement as well, we just don’t realize it. So people’s typical reaction to Buddy is to move away, run, be scared – if you think about it, that’s still rewarding.
When Cesar walks in the back yard, he’s not giving that reward, not moving away, not scared, not threatening – he’s giving Buddy access, opening the book so to speak. Dogs can read us like a book, you can’t lie to a dog, had he walked in the back yard scared, Buddy likely would have attacked. What Cesar did is create confusion. Confused dogs are much easier to work with, my plan A isn’t working, he’s not backing off – what do I do now! That’s the time to show a Plan B. Buddy moves away, giving up what he deems to be the place to protect – the dog is confused. When Cesar say “We’re going to make him surrender”, those are the wrong words – in a sense, he’s asking the dog to surrender. He’s telling the dog that he respects that he’s scared and unsure what to do, but also asking for trust – showing that he’s trustworthy and understands the dogs way of being. You’ll see the “why” at the end of the video.
Buddy walks around, and ends up by the house. Cesar walks up calmly, and the dog literally surrenders. That’s a plight for help, that’s a dog begging for communication, the dog knows that Cesar understands his way of being – the dog is looking for a protector and will surrender to that. Cesar earned trust and respect quickly from the dog. When Cesar squats down, he say “I’m not overpowering too much” and that’s the proper way to go – dominance doesn’t have any place.
If you get nothing else from the video, heed the last statement in the first clip – “I’m taking over, I’m becoming his protector, I want him to trust”. He just injected a “Plan B” – if you watch the rest of the video, he spends the rest of the time proving it. Empowering the dog, empowering people around him, showing people how to be the protector. A 200 pound Mastiff still needs to know that you’re there for them, that you are going to protect them and keep them out of harms way. When you accomplish that, the dog will learn to trust and it’s amazing how many of your issues melt away.
Short clip on Buddy. The full video is further down.
Full episode of Buddy the pitbull – everyone should watch this.
Wendy 26 December 2020
I watched the entire episode after reading your post. It makes alot more sense when its explained. Would you be willing to dissect other episodes if I post them?
monty 26 December 2020 — Post author
Sure. I’m going to be slating more trainer videos in the near future, and Millan is one of the big names. I can’t say I agree with everything Millan does, but he’s still one of the best – once you understand what he’s doing. Millan has changed quite a bit over the years and we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I would love to have his track record with dogs.
I’ll slate the Shadow video in the next few days, and the good and bad.