http://www.ticketsoup.com/

You can buy tickets from above. Got mine!!

Tickets £39.50 to £99.00 you have got to be joking!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If they PAID me ten times that, I might go -if I could wear a blindfold and earplugs........

Alternatively, volunteer with the RSPCA and see animals abused for free!

This man makes my blood boil.

Audience participation ??

Too far for me to get there :(

he going to the 02 in london to in march

I have watched Cesar for a while now and some shows have been OK...watched the new series on sky+ last night in this show he had a families tibetan terrier who was silly on walks, barking at strange dogs etc, the owners had a prong collar and he kept that on while the young daughter started jogging with this dog the- cesars assertive positive crap way and all was going well- little dog realised to calm down...what made me shriek in horror is that the collar was hurting her neck and every now and again was screaming in pain- they all thought it was her just making noise! next minute the young girl put on her ipod on to run with this poor animal (to most probably drown out the sound of her having hysterically fits)...if only he was against those collars as victoria stilwell is, I had to turn it off it upset me so much,, why couldn't any off them see this dog was shaking her head screaming it was so obvious !

> the owners had a prong collar and he kept that on

I would happily put a prong collar on him. Have tried to watch a whole episode of dog whisperer, never manage to though.

There is absolutely no way i would go. Never in a million years!

OMG,why on earth do we want CM in this country?? Somebody please get him out!

Don't think I'll be going to Glasgow anytime soon then......

Sadly there are several other locations to avoid as well.

Strange... it seems that the only animosity towards CM is on Champdogs, A great majority of dog folk that I know (and I don't mean pet owner's) but trainers and behaviourists use Pack leadership and assertiveness in order to get good behavioural results. I don't like prong collar's, saw someone using one on a GSD at one of the obedience clubs I go to and I shot a strong look of disapproval in their direction, but I would not condemn a whole system of thinking just because a praticioner used a tool i disagree with, I have watched alot of the series and have a collection of his works, it shows that the placement of the collar and not the type of collar that is the issue, he uses the same method whether the dog has got a choke, half choke etc collar on. He invented the Illusion collar, which one of my friends use to control her large dog, the placement on the collar is in a high position on the neck for maximum control.
Say what you will about the praticioner but I think the methodology has validity. But each to their own, likewise I wouldn't go and watch Victoria Stilwell, I am not her greatest fan although I do agree with some of her pratices :)

Its certainly not just this board, another well known dog board is even more anti CM that champdogs believe me. His methods have no validity, they are outdated, the dominance theories were disproved ages ago and there is never any need to train with such abuse and confrontation. It doesn't matter if you like the individual person, its the methods that matter, Victoria Stillwell deals with the underlying cause, whereas CM just tries to supress the problematic behaviour without addressing why the dog is reacting in such a manner. The dog is scared, CM stops him from reacting using forceful techniques. The dog isn't reacting but is still scared. You end up with a ticking time bomb that may jsut suddenly flip when pushed too far and no one will expect it as his usual communication signals have been suppressed. CM actually believes that by stopping the dog from putting his tail between the legs this makes him braver, but all you are doing is stopping him from using his normal canine communication signals and then needs to look for another way to show he's scared.

> I have watched alot of the series and have a collection of his works, it shows that the placement of the collar and not the type of collar that is the issue, he uses the same method whether the dog has got a choke, half choke etc collar on

It's strange how he used a completey different approach to rehabilitate a Boer Boel (sp?) - african mastiff. He did none of his 'bully' tactics, he used treats as positive enforcement/association along with a socialisation programme (again reward-based). If he can do such a fantastic job using reward-based methods on a huge, extremely powerfull dog, that previously was an unscoialised,  fearfull mess (and being fearfull he was very reactive defensively), it just goes to show he knows how to train dogs 'nicely' it's just that he wouldn't get away with being a bully-boy with the Boer Boel.

I used to think the sun shone out of CMs undercrackers, but I've seen too many of his shows now and some of them contradict his harsh approach. IMO, he is a bully for the simple reason it produces the quickest results for TV, but when faced with a dog that would eat him for breakfast he relies on reward based methods (which actually makes it worse as he knows how to use kind methods and knows how reliable & effective they are, they just can take longer to do).

I must say I do agree with when he says 'calm, assertive', but that should not be confused with dictatorship and bullying, afterall a great leader leads by example :)

>Strange... it seems that the only animosity towards CM is on Champdogs

Oh no, he's hugely unpopular on many other sites as well!

>He invented the Illusion collar,

So called because it gives the illusion of being humane

>the placement on the collar is in a high position on the neck for maximum control.

Yes, that's the area where you can cause the greatest amount of discomfort/pain with the least amount of effort.

>He invented the Illusion collar,

>So called because it gives the illusion of being humane

No, he just happened to name the device after his wife, all an illusion collar is is an elaborate slip lead with a fabric neck brace to hold the slip in the right place.

A great majority of dog folk that I know (and I don't mean pet owner's) but trainers and behaviourists use Pack leadership and assertiveness in order to get good behavioural results.

I work in this field and know many behavoiurists and trainers and none of the ones I know are in any way supportive of his particular way of dealing with dogs.  Infact many of us have to deal with the fall out from his dangerous training ideas, when people practise them at home and end with the dog in a worse state or getting bitten or worse the dog biting somone else seemingly out of know where because they have suppressed the dog's communication but left the underlying issue undelt with!  Unfortunately there are some of the old fashioned trainers and behaviourists out there that do as much harm as Ceaser and they are ususally people who haven;t carried on studying and haven't changed with the times, thankfully they are on the decline or at least they were.  I worry about what him coming over here is going to do for a great many dogs.

all an illusion collar is is an elaborate slip lead with a fabric neck brace to hold the slip in the right place.

I think most people know exactly what the illusion collar is and yes if the right place is the most sensitive and uncomfortable place to put pressure on a dogs neck then it is in exactly the right place.  But many of us manage to deal with aggressive dogs and turn them round with out the need to garrotte then or intimidate or bully them into 'submission' other wise know as making the shut down due to extreme stress!

Personally I think the methodology is logical and effective but I would not and do not use it exclusively as a training or conditioning method, there are aspects that I don't agree with such as Alpha rolling and etc. Operant conditioning is defo the best way for training a dog but you can only do this if the dog has a focus on you and/or is exhibiting the right behaviour at the right time in order for you to give a positive reward, in order to get that dog focused and receptive to OC I think Ceser's methodology comes in useful here. Pack leadership is not dog training, its conditioning or a foundation on which other dog training methods should be applied, clicker training is my prefered method and do most of my training using this since results are fast and long lasting and of course positive :)
The mantra 'Excerise, discipline, affection' and 'calm assertiveness' are the best parts IMO of CM methodology and have been effective for me. I tend to pick the best part of theories I have read and that I believe work into my training regime. With regards to the placement of the collar, if my dog is being particularly unfocused and not responding to baiting or watch signals, then I do push her half choke up to the sensitive area and pull up the lead as a distruptive stimulus, once I have her attention I bait her and release the pressure again.
I understand that the problem with the illusion collar is that the slip lead is up on the sensitive area all the time, but if the slip lead is loose then it's not applying the pressure, so long as the pressure is released the slip becomes loose ... I can understand though if it is used on an animal that pull all the time it will do damage just like a choke chain, it always amazes me when I see dogs straining on a choke chain...it's never good when a tool is relied on instead of training.

Operant conditioning is defo the best way for training a dog but you can only do this if the dog has a focus on you and/or is exhibiting the right behaviour at the right time in order for you to give a positive reward

Yes and if you spend time teaching the dog what you 'do' require of him rather than punishing him for what you don't want, then you can teach the dog to focus on you.  I've nver needed to prob or jab my dog in the neck to gain her focus, I have taught her that paying attention to me is something worth her while doing so it has becoime rewarding for her to do so. If you set the dog up for success so that he can give you his attention in the face of things he finds frightening or over stimulating then again you can reward the wanted behaviour or the correct response rather than shoving them in at the deep end which is what her does.   Ceaser sets dogs up to fail and then punishes them for showing fear or over excitement or frustration.

Clicker training and Ceasers 'methodology' are about as far apart as you can get and are completely opposed to each other.

There is nothing logical about what he does because it is based on flawed theories about dominance and packs.  We are not dealing with woves we are dealing with domestic dogs and applying 'training techniques' or what ever you want to call what he does, based on flawed studies of wolves is about as logical as teaching your children what you want from them by basing your teaching techniques on studies of apes.

Operant conditioning is defo the best way for training a dog but you can only do this if the dog has a focus on you and/or is exhibiting the right behaviour at the right time in order for you to give a positive reward, in order to get that dog focused and receptive to OC I think Ceser's methodology comes in useful here. Pack leadership is not dog training,

If the dog isn't focused on you, you first ensure it happens -far from impossible, even with a really scared dog -you just have to know how to go about it. The very FIRST lesson is to get the dog to focus on you. Same thing with right behaviour at right time -no need to WAIT for it to happen, you can nudge things along without in any way forcing the dog. There are always ways around it. As far as packleadership goes, no it's not dog training -and it doesn't even exist.

It is possible for a dog to loose focus, obviously you get a dogs attention first but if your out and about training in the park, with a dog that has a very high prey drive and a squirrel decides to suddenly run across (this has happened before to us) it is very easy for them to loose focus, go into that drive and be difficult to bring the attention back onto you. I have taught the watch excerise and she knows that it is rewarding to respond to me, but sometimes with being from working line stock she finds game more interesting than a food or praise reward :) can't say i blame her, a dare say if she could talk when asked whether chance to kill some prey or having something tasty to eat, what would she choose I am sure it would be the squirrel! xD
I still feel 'Excerise, discipline, affection' and 'calm assertiveness' are great philosophies :)
BTW I never said you have to wait for the behaviour to occur, of course you can facilitate correct movements but what I was aiming at was that the timing of the reward had to be exactly at the right time when the behaviour (whether facilitated or not) occured. Sorry I did not make that clearer.

> With regards to the placement of the collar, if my dog is being particularly unfocused and not responding to baiting or watch signals, then I do push her half choke up to the sensitive area and pull up the lead as a distruptive stimulus, once I have her attention I bait her and release the pressure again.

I only rely on a lead & collar as a least resort (eg. in the unlikely event my dog suddenly bolts towards a road, I can stop him), using reward-based training there is no need to choke him to get his attention on me. On the odd ocasion I have panicked and pulled him by his collar & lead (ie, when he decided my front door was scarey & tried to run off) it has resulted in a power struggle - who can pull the hardest - I did not win. This is exactly the reason CM does not use this forcefull method on certain dogs, dogs that are too strong to be physically forced into things NEED positive trainig, if it works on the huge dogs there is no reason not to use it on the smaller dogs.

> it's never good when a tool is relied on instead of training.

Agree with this, which is why trainig aids need not be harsh. If the handler relies on pain/suffocation to get the dog to comply it's not the trainig itself that is helping - just the implement so therfore np actual trainig is being instilled.

>I only rely on a lead & collar as a least resort

Defo agree, as I said, if she is being particualary unfocused e.g jumping all over the place like a wild thing straining to kill some sort of small game. There is no alternative other than to correct the behaviour, a few momments with the collar in an uncomfortable place, not choking her but applying pressure, is much better than getting dragged or the dog getting out of control and injuring itself (e.g pursuing game through barbed wire). I don't to the jabbing in the neck thing or grabbing her and rolling her on the floor, I think your just agrovating the dog doing this, redirecting the energy outlet onto you and you get bitten. There are certain parts of CM's pratices but the core ideals to me are logical.

Excerise (makes sense excerising a dog first, a tired dog can focus much better as it's energy is depleted, so it is not pre-occupied by the want to run and play therefore it is more receptive to training)
Discipline (makes sense to train a dog after excerise, more receptive to training, pretty much a reiteration of the previous statement, plus it is better to give discipline before affection, affection is earned)
Affection (Given after discipline as praise or food reward, establishes behaviour positively and thus is more likely to occur)
Simple and effective and positive :)

> she is being particualary unfocused e.g jumping all over the place like a wild thing straining to kill some sort of small game. There is no alternative other than to correct the behaviour, a few momments with the collar in an uncomfortable place, not choking her but applying pressure, is much better than getting dragged or the dog getting out of control and injuring itself (e.g pursuing game through barbed wire).

The ideal solution would be to teach her an alternative outlet for that prey-drive, such as playing with you with a toy (there is a special 'lure' toy on a string that is ideal for this sort of thing), that way, the alternative behaviour is itself rewarding and she has learnt a suitable outlet for that instinct. Much easier to teach an alternative behaviour rather than simply to try to elliminate one :)

Here's an example - My dog is still very immature and occasionally gets OTT when meeting other dogs, rather than risk him squashing a dog in play and as his state of mind is such he is 'wired' to expend energy at that moment, I have taught him to have a sprint with me instead of playing with the dog, he still then gets his fun, expends that pent up energy and focuses on me, as an added bonus the other dog avoids having a giant play-bow landed on it :)

BTW I never said you have to wait for the behaviour to occur, of course you can facilitate correct movements but what I was aiming at was that the timing of the reward had to be exactly at the right time when the behaviour (whether facilitated or not) occured. Sorry I did not make that clearer.
Yes the timing of the reward has to be contingent with the behaviour but this is also true with punishment, even more important imo.

You say exercise is all important which it is, but what happens if you have a dog that can't be exercised to exhaustion? We all know pups can't go jogging or roler skating until properly grown, what about dogs with joint problems like HD  or a herat problem who have to be exercised cautiously? There is not a one size fits all cure in behaviour training, mental stimulation can be more important that sticking a dog on a treadmill which appears to be CM's preferred technique from what i have seen. Simply tiring the dog to exhastion doesn't really solve anything because if for whatever reason you cannot, the problem is still likely to occur. The dog needs to learn self control in the first place!

Excellent post mastifflover, for example, instead of punishing a dog for jumping up, teach him to sit instead, so much simpler and kinder!

> You say exercise is all important which it is, but what happens if you have a dog that can't be exercised to exhaustion?

Yep, my mastiff has ED (discovered at 5 motnhs old), got him mobile by about 7 months, just when he found his confidance, but I could not walk him for more than about 5 mins. So I learnt how to train a giant dog with plenty of pent up energy that he could not expend on walks (add to that the boerdom of not having much walking). I managed fine with reward based training, infact having a dog that couldn't be walked to exahustion helped me learn how to cope with an OTT, excitable young dog much better and learn even more so that punishment and heavy-handedness are NOT needed.

My dog is totally not bothered about toys, her prey drive is limited to small furries (not cats) but squirrels and rabbits and birds. I could dangle a toy there, make the motions of prey, she's extremely clever, she know's its not the real thing therefore redirecting onto a toy which I have tried to do before, the dog completely ignored my best efforts, so redirecting would be ideal but is non applicable in my case :) We do tend to run in the opposite direction to break her focus on said animal but she has the memory of an elephant, she still looks for the furry as much as 10 minutes later even though the things long gone.  Damn if only life was that simple xD
Anyways we've gone of the point, love him or hate him, CM is coming to the UK.
nite nite

My dog is totally not bothered about toys,

You can clicker train her to BE toy motivated.

I've just watched an episode of "It's me or the dog USA" on Sky3 -which is Freeview. It's on at 6 pm every weekday but I've missed it every day. All I can say is WOW! Victoria Stillwell has TOTALLY changed and I now have every respect for her. She spent this entire episode clicker training and explaining why shock collars, spray collars and punishment is wrong. Excellent! I've set it to record tomorrow's episode!

It is possible for a dog to loose focus, obviously you get a dogs attention first but if your out and about training in the park, with a dog that has a very high prey drive and a squirrel decides to suddenly run across (this has happened before to us) it is very easy for them to loose focus, go into that drive and be difficult to bring the attention back onto you. I have taught the watch excerise and she knows that it is rewarding to respond to me, but sometimes with being from working line stock she finds game more interesting than a food or praise reward

That is the problem with CMs methods and the way he does things it lacks imagination, and punishment takes less effort and thought than training something positively and finding out what makes your dog tick and spending time building up rewards.  I have two sight/scent hounds and a Doberman all with equally high prey drive which is very high and no your absolutely right a piece of food or verbal praise isn't going to compete with something like a rabbit or a deer.  So I've built up the value of a toy that she gets to release her prey drive on and this has become a more and more valuable toy to her and is the next best thing to the real chase, that along with management and spending time training a chase recall means that she has a conditioned response and that is training and takes time but is possible.  Not only that then it is reliable.

What happens when you are using a lead to control a dog? It means that it requires physical handling and if you aren't in proximity to the dog then you have no control.  You never see dogs in Ceasers hands that aren't in close enough proximity to be manhandled or physically intimidated.  Also if your dog is distracted enough by just applying light pressure to the sensitive area on her neck then she's fairly easily distracted so it would be possible to do it in a kinder way.  I can assure you that prior to me spending a long time training (using only rewards and management) with my Dobe there is no way in the prescence of a squirrell, rabbit or any other prey thing that a tug of the collar, a shout, jab or anthing else would have made a blind bit of difference beacuse her adrenalin would get so high that she wouldn't be able to feel/hear the 'corrections'.  That's why it's important to condition a response positively because you are never going to get that reliability and response doing it by corrections and are unlikely to eveer have control without something physical such as a lead and choke.

Yes sometimes dogs do loose focus and it's usually because they haven't had enoguh training in that particular environment, however even if they have they are living beings that are entitled to get distracted, given that I and pretty much every person I've ever met gets distracted from time to time then I think it's pretty fair to expect it from our dogs from too.  If it's happening in a particular setting repeatedly then it is down to the training and trainer and not fair to correct the dog for something that's down to inadequate training and there the handlers fault not the dogs.

Discipline (makes sense to train a dog after excerise, more receptive to training, pretty much a reiteration of the previous statement, plus it is better to give discipline before affection, affection is earned)
Affection (Given after discipline as praise or food reward, establishes behaviour positively and thus is more likely to occur)

Most of the dogs on Ceasers show are already incredibly stressed and then even more so when they are punished/corrected or what you would refer to as discipline, however given that these dogs are in an already stressed state and then more so they will not be able to take in what it is that they are supposed to be learning, it is scientifically proven that people/animals don't learn as well when they are stressed.  So there is little point in giving the 'reward' (which is usually incredibly small an unrewarding to the dog in comparission to what is being asked of itunless it is of course as release from the punishment) as they won't have made any connection.  Yes rewarding good behaviour does make it more likely to occur again, but only when a dog is in a state where it is able to take in and learn, not when it is stressed to the hilt!

Excerise (makes sense excerising a dog first, a tired dog can focus much better as it's energy is depleted, so it is not pre-occupied by the want to run and play therefore it is more receptive to training)

Again, yes exercise is obviously good, but really most children know that.  However a dog shouldn't need to betired to be  receptive to training and if my dog was dissapearing off to play whilst I was doing a training session with her I'd want to re-evaluate my training as it wouldn't be being rewarding enough to her.  As it is thanks to clicker training and lots of work and using imagination and rewarding according to the difficulty of the task I have a dog that asks for training sessions and can't wait to get into them.

I've never seen a dog on Ceasers how look like it's having a great time during 'training' I also think anybody who aspires to a man whos own dogs give them every calming signal under the sun on his approach in a bid to appease him really need to study canine body language so they can have a better understanding of how worried dogs are by what he does.  I mean given that he mistakes appeasement gestures for dominance what chance do dogs have, and now he's coming to the UK :-(

I've just watched an episode of "It's me or the dog USA" on Sky3 -which is Freeview. It's on at 6 pm every weekday but I've missed it every day. All I can say is WOW! Victoria Stillwell has TOTALLY changed and I now have every respect for her. She spent this entire episode clicker training and explaining why shock collars, spray collars and punishment is wrong. Excellent! I've set it to record tomorrow's episode!

I keep meaning to watch this as have been hearing really good things about it, just keep getting back late for it, but it does sound like she's doing great

Its absolutely fantastic, she does things in a way that i would probably choose to do in that kind of situation. She looks for the cause not just try to remove the symptoms.

well after this chat on cm i have booked my tickets to see him at 02 in london in march 2010.
plus i have one of his collars and it works on one of my dog great,to stop him pulling it better than the halt one where one for my other dog years ago use to get out of it,plus i dont like the halt collar it rub againt the eyes,and it can cause problem to the neck.

it like shopping you either like sainburys produts or tesco,
it all depends what works for you and your dogs or a bit of this with this method mixed it all up and it still could work for you and your dog there on rhyme or reason to which method you chose as long as it work long side you and your dogs,
with out pain and bullying .
it like bring up a child house rule firm but fair,not soft and let them get away with it,and not arrgives and bullying them into place,.

The methods that CM promote and use
can cause severe problems when owners copy - which, as we all know, they will.

I know of several dogs now who have been put to sleep  as a direct result of these methods, promoted by him on his programme.

The owners started to use the more aggressive methods, their dogs became frightened and fought back. The owners could not cope and so had the dogs put to sleep. This was as a direct result of their watching The Dog Whisperer.

I am sure there are more dogs that this has happened to; in fact I can think of one more now, which makes 4 :(

What CM does is actually illegal in the Uk. Dog trainer Stephen King was convicted of animal cruelty when he used a choke chain very strongly on a dog in a London park (and did other things) and a police dog handler was recently punished because he hung a dog because it would not jump over a 5ft jump.

CM actually uses the collars to partically asphxiate dogs at times. If he went out on the street and did it, he'd be reported and, I hope, convicted of animal cruelty.

Lindsay
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