Obedience Wars

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Last year when we went to a friend's house in the country and picked up our cute little Labrador puppy, I had no idea that I was about to enter a battlefield over how to train a dog.
I soon needed help.

Although Sunshine proved a quick study when it came to toilet training and learning some commands. She was not a quick study in stopping annoying behaviors. In at least two instances I had to change my behavior so that she wouldn't have the object that made her so annoying. In one instance, I put away an outside chair that she had decided was hers and she should be allowed to defend by nipping at me when I sat in it. I also gave up wearing long nightgowns and bathrobes for the summer since she spent an inordinate amount of time hanging on those robes by her teeth. I'm happy to say that a year later she a fairly well behaved dog who doesn't mess with me in my chair and ignores my nightgown.

But along the way there were some frustrating moments and there is at least one pet store, I'll never go to again because of how rude they clerk was in part over issues of how to stop such behavior. The clerk who claimed to also own Labs, told me no lab every had such issues and it must be my lack of "command" that was causing this problem. I've since learned that many Labs are overly mouthy. The good news is they don't bite, but they do like to put their mouths on things and can be annoying especially as pups.

I began my summer with a couple of books and I slowly accumulated a large stack mostly picked up at the used bookstore. It turns out there's a brisk trade in used dog obedience books.
I also began my summer by taping every episode of Caesar Millan's Dog Whisperer. I admit I had an enormous amount of frustration over trying to apply some of Caesar techniques. I tried the "shhhh" and touch the neck concept over and over with my puppy to no avail. I had one episode where Caesar shows the owner right where to touch, I played that ten second segment over and over, but never got it.


Fortunately, I had a friend involved in a dog training club that my vet also recommended so I signed up for puppy obedience classes which were okay and even better Obedience I classes in the fall. One of the best things about the classes were the long lists of books and articles they gave us in handouts. In those handouts, I found books by folks I hadn't found at the used bookstore. I began to think about a different approach, and as it turned out one that worked for me.


At about the same time, my kids and I began to watch a new Reality TV show, Greatest American Dog. One of the judges was dog trainer Victoria Stilwell. After taping a couple of her show's episodes, I discontinued watching Millan and started watching her. One of the biggest differences between the two shows was how easy it was to take something Stilwell did on her show and use it at home. I didn't need to rewind and rewind to take a technique and use it. Neither did I need to have my special "energy" to be right to use her techniques. I even found a post on her forums that says the same thing:

the thing that speaks to me the most is the fact that most of Stilwell's
techniques can be taken straight from the show and used in the viewers' home
that day. my family does this all the time, and I've seen numerous posts on this
forum about what we've learned.


alternately, Millan's show begins with a "do not try this at home" warning
that makes me think it's more entertainment than education, and bears an uncanny
resemblance to the kind of show with stunts done by professionals that, despite
all warnings, viewers emulate and hurt themselves and others. it's dangerous.

It turns out I was in the middle of a the dog training battle. For the last several decades behaviorists had slowly been winning the day using mostly rewards based training techniques. Most of those in the United States looked to a San Francisco man, Ian Dunbar, as their inspiration. Dunbar had introduced many new ways of viewing and training dogs. He had pioneered puppy classes just like the one I enrolled in with Sunshine. I eventually read his two books on puppies, but sadly it was too late for me to try the techniques used in them much with Sunshine who was already long past crate training, house breaking, or many of the things Dunbar suggests.

This new style of training was going well until Caesar Millan's rise to fame on the National Geographic channel. His rise gave the dog training world much angst. Many who act as gate keepers for that world feel his emphasis on pack leadership to be a return to the dark ages of dog training.

Claudia Kawczynska, editor of Bark magazine, is one of Dunbar's many fans. "It's
irritating to see Millan treated as the expert. Ian is an animal behaviorist
with decades of experience," she says, "He should be where Millan is."
Kawczynska likens the Millan cult of personality and popularity to the
anti-science, anti-academic sentiment she sees prevalent in American culture and
politics. "Millan lived on a farm, so what? He's good looking, but he's not
smart about dogs. It seems people don't want their experts to be educated." 1

I think some of the remarks directed at Millan are unfair. For instance, even brief viewing of his show, will show that Millan is quite good with dogs. The real question in my mind is his ability to transfer that skill to other people. In my experience, he was not able to transfer that knowledge to me in any workable form.

So what's workable? In later entries I'll do some brief reviews of the books that worked for me.