Well unlike last week when I paid half attention this week I made sure I concentrated. I think Victoria Sitwell is the new big name UK behaviourist. She has charisma, style, charm and beyond all that she is a really good comunicator she got the whole family and dog together tonight, wonderfull.

She certainly showed how dogs need consistency and consideration, and the value of purely positive treatment.

oh for the love of... missed it again!!!!  every week without fail, and I always come on here and find a thread about it. ARG!

Missed it. What was she doing this week? BTW do dogs really appreciate charisma, style & charm? If so my poor lot miss out! :D

She was showing the usual well-meaning family that slapping their dalmatian's nose then being surprised that he snapped at hands was their fault. That letting him up on the sofa and cuddling him, then turfing him off aggressively was confusing him. That leaving food on the table in front of him was unfair.

I was impressed by the simple way she behaved to the owners in the way they behaved to the dog. She flapped her hand at their faces (like they did to the dog) and proved to them that it was annoying and irritating. Sje suddenly shouted at the man for sitting on the sofa and he he got a bit shirty before he realised how the tables had been turned on him. And she put big slices of choclate gateau in front of all the family, then refused to let them eat it, demonstrating how much they were expecting of their dog.

I think this weeks was the best one shes done apart from allowing the dog into a room with visitors when it has history of biting visitors.

Well really the improvements were a major landmark in dog training/behaviourism, this is a woman who simply has the X factor, you could see the way the dog related to her as soon as it saw here, so yes she did have something which made the dog relate straight away, we call it charisma but she also had charm and charisma when she related to the family anyone could see the respect they had for her -
I think that lady could use either positive or negative methods and she would get right, anyone can see she has a natural gift with dogs.

No, that dog, like 99% of all others, wouldn't respond well at all to negative methods. The mild negatives he was getting were the cause of his owner's problems with him. Anything more aggressive would undoubtedly have ended up in the one-way trip to the vet.

As the lady said, physical aversives cause aggression ...

Oh yes, and the fact that he didn't have a routine was bothering him. Because he never knew when he was going to be fed, he became opportunistic. If it's available, I'll have it ...

Well Barkbusters have been gaining increasing popularity over this past year but watching Vicky I think she will take their trade if she starts a franchise.

So long as the corporate clothing includes thigh boots and leather huh Denis ;)

LOL - no but I think someone on here (not mentioning any names or pointing up the post at info ;)  ) appreciates it LOL :D

Yeap, I agree. She has a very good way of communicating in a clear and concise manner what needs to be done. Mind, all good behaviourists and trainers will be able to do the same, but they don't have the benefit of television editing :-D

Still, it makes for fun watching and also as a very good way of educating the public. I ams ure many people out there will start to re-think their ways with their dogs.

I agree, she was good this week. Glad that poor dalmatian is now not so confused and that the owners are clearer on how to treat him - success all round :)
My only concern is that she does allow fairly dangerous (ish) situations to develop - last week I think it was young children near a dog that bit, and this week she allowed the situation to develop so that the dog bit someone... but overall, I thought it was good.

Lindsay
x

Why did you not like the person the dog bite?

Never having met him, I can't say whether I like him or not. ;)

Mmm

At least thsi week she didnt go on about gesture eating!

The two things that annoyed me this week:

1/aversive noise thingy... yeah, the 'act of god' scary noise thing stopped the dog stealing the food. But for how long, because eventually the people do have to really be out. That dog was far from stupid and its only going to take one or two rewarding experiences regarding stealing for him to figure out that the noise is just a noise and does NOTHING and he can still steal. THat will make him even MORE hard to train out of stealing.
Not ONCE did she mention that it is in fact unfair to leave food lying around and expect a dog NOT to eat it. I think more than not having a set routine for food (which i do have, and two of my dogs will still steal given the slightest opportunity if im stupid enought o leave food out), she really NEEDED to point out that leaving food in front of a dog is not only incredibly tempting (which she did touch on) but GROSSLY unfair given 'dog rules' do decree that unattended food is for them.

2/ de-knackering the dog.

Yes, this might help. But given his 'aggression' was either a defence against being manhandled/walloped/confused/scared or an attention grabbing thing (that nip he gave to the boy at the table came across to me as pure, unadulterated 'LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEE' and nothing else!), i cant really see how castration will help.
That, plus my personal experiences with castrating dogs suffering from a lack of confidence, really didnt seem like the best plan. That said, given how fairly incompetant the family were i suspect it wasnt a bad idea overall.

The program is a good start, but it really needs to be made clearer that rewards and consistency are incredibly important, and also that nipping and biting do not always = 'dog wants to kill owner' or 'vicious dog'.

At least she DID mention that aggression is often fear based.

Em

I have smacked my dogs on the nose not hard and never once have they tried to bite me.  I am not proud of it but I have done it. I personally think there was a little bit more than one punch on the nose which has caused this reaction.  The dog was a rescue dog so who knows what has gone on its past life.

I leave my food on the dining room table while the family are called to the table and the dogs have never pinched the food simply because they are never fed titbits from the table and the kids have all been warned it is more than their lives are worth to feed them.  The only one who is hand fed occassionally is Thomas when he is on hunger strike when the girls are in season.  My dogs are not exceptionally well behaved but they know food on the table is out of bounds.  Food in the bin though is a totally different matter!  I have got to say though that they were all feeding the dog so they shouldnt really have been shocked when the poor thing pinched the food.

From what was said the dog was not getting proper excercise so it was hardly surprising he was playing up.  A tired dalmatian is a good dalmatian.  If our lot have not been out for a few days which is very rare they revert to being like a bunch of hyperactive two year olds.

I agree though that I didnt think that was a bite just a attention seeking nip.  My lot stick their paw on you or bark when they are being ignored.  If he had wanted to he could have easily taken a chunk out of the boy.  Personally I never allow any of my dogs in the house when the kids have other peoples children around simply because you cant watch them all the time and not all children are dog friendly either.

All in all I found it very sad the dog IMO was with the totally wrong family.  I think the dog needed a calm home without children and a very experienced owner.

Coming from a novice point of view (which is what the program is aimed at) I found her extremely annoying, I am not for one minute saying she wasn't good and didn't make some sence, but she really gets under my skin. :)

But apart from that, I would like to see a bit more of the practical side of what she does. It shows one minute a dog out of control and the next thing he was in the park doing short stays and then comes I think it is all very well showing that even a dog as boistrious as he was can be calmed down, but it is no good if she doesn't show how! I realise they only have half an hour to fit it all into, but if the program was meant to help people and not just show how wonderfull she is with dog's, it isn't doing very well! So if they stopped taking up a good five minutes of the program showing her with her 'whip' and driving along in her Bug, they might be able to squeeze in a bit more understanding of why she is giving hand signals, why the dog is doing what it is doing, why whatever she is doing is actually working.

JMO :D

It was interesting as well to see how she adapted training the stay for owners who are not perhaps that good at training; normally, one doesn't keep saying "stay, stay, stay" but in this case it was working best for dog and owner :)

Lindsay
x

Her explanation of that made sense, though (to me anyway! :D) - if she wants the dog to do something, the command's only given once. If she doesn't want it to do something (and with a 'stay', she doesn't want it to do anything), then she'll repeat it.

It actualy showed short stays and comes WITHOUT distractions Natelie - however- that was the TV companies fault - she is my idol-did it say if she is married?

>did it say if she is married?

LOL :D

I think she does a good job, but it just doesn't show enough of what she does.

P.S. Not that I was looking for one, but I didn't spot a ring info request! :D

Made perfect sense to me too, I believe a good trainer will adapt when necessary and she was doing it for family, pet obedience :)

Lindsay
x

Yes, the nip we saw wasn't a bite, any more than a slap can be equated to a thrashing. Not acceptable, but not vicious.

From what I've seen of this series, I'm not particularly impressed. And I sincerely hope she's not the next big name behaviourist. Dominatrix comes to mind :D

I would love to see outtakes of it and see how long it really takes her to put some semblence of order back into these troublesome mutts lives.

How long has she been a bahaviourist/trainer, whatever she calls herself? Ten years, enough time then to have had lots of different experiences in the real world and teach us dog lovers/trainers/behaviourist something none of us knew.

I agree that all the families so far just don't seem to have a clue when it comes to dogs, but god, she can be patronising.

The bit at the beginning when you see the Shepherd snarling away and then in the next take she raises her arm and it lays down and has a personality change really does make me giggle. Is she Wonder Woman in disguise? Or is that what the programme makers are hoping to convince us of.

Media personality in the making, who happens to work with dogs, when, if anything, IMO, it should be the other way round.

I'm sure I read somewhere Infoexhange, that her OH edits or created the programme, he's behind the scenes.

On the positive side, she does try to get the owners to look at it from the dogs POV, which is no easy feat considering the families that have been shown.

>I would love to see outtakes of it and see how long it really takes her to put some semblence of order back into >these troublesome mutts lives.

Yes. This is the one thing that worries me now. You see her take a dog and tell it things like sit and down and stay and they DO it and the owner is amazed. Not ONCE has there been an explanation of that dogs do  not KNOW what sit or down means unless they are TAUGHT it first. No matter how firm you are! Other  than that I have been pleasantly surprised. Would have liked to find out though how things went with the Dalmatian -did it ever bite again?

Noticed she has a book out now, it is in today's OD.

The chap in last night's programme said something like "If you'd told me 6 months ago he'd ever be this good, I wouldn't have believed you." This could mean that they've been working on his training for 6 months, which seems a fair timescale for the changes.

Did anyone take any notice of the harness she used on that Dal? Any ideas where you could one like that? I'm not keen on the ones that go around the face, but if we found we needed a harness, I could cope with one like that :D

Check out the Company of Animals www.companyofanimals.co.uk I think they might do that harness. I have seen them but can't remember the name...............! :)

Thanks very much :D

>Media personality in the making, who happens to work with dogs, when, if anything, IMO, it should be the other way round.
>I'm sure I read somewhere Infoexhange, that her OH edits or created the programme, he's behind the scenes.

Interesting.

Ms Stilwell was interviewed yesterday on Richard & Judy. Interestingly, she never referred to herself as a behaviourist (although R&J did, many times)  nor did she mention any official qualifications/accreditation.

She said she started out as an actor and took up dog walking to earn extra cash. She claimed to have walked 20 dogs per day and a behaviourist told her that for all those dogs to behave well when they were with her she must have an amazing ability with dogs. Hence, her career as a 'behaviourist' was born....

Did she walk all 20 dogs at the one time? That would be amazing!

She seems like a nice women, I find the programmes very interesting, so far she has bought nothing knew to dog training that I haven't seen. She presents herself very well and must have the patiences of a saint as some of these dog owners she visits I would want to throttled them!

Has anyone one seen "Bring your Husband to Heel" I have found this programme very interesting also but I haven't been watching it to sort my husband out as I don't have one!!! :) Maybe oneday????

For those who haven't seen it Dog Trainer - Annie Clayton helps women sort out there husbands by teaching her dog training methods. It's really interesting, very common sense I like Annie and her methods.

>>Did she walk all 20 dogs at the one time? That would be amazing!<<

That would be suicidally stupid if you ask me! Nobody - no mater how well the dogs are trained - can keep proper control of a pack of 20 pet dogs.

She did in fact go into quite a lot of detail on how it was unfair leaving food out for the dog as temptation. Remember the chocolate cake scene? This is why she said to put him in the kitchen whilst the family was eating.

One must bear in mind that 30 mins is not enough time to go into detail about training and how to do it. The programme does a very good job at pointing people in the right direction and at the same time making it entertaining for people to watch. This will hopefully encourage people to look at their own ways and seek one-to-one help on how to implement it through their local dog trainer.

I think the biting incident was a very short snip of the whole problem. It helped in pointing out that one cannot cure dogs of biting (they are dogs after all and they will bite) and that no guarantees can be made. This is a very important point for those owners who have dogs that bite.

Re: castration - perfectly adequate in this case. The dog was not shy or submissive in the slightest AND there is no evidence that castration makes dogs fearful or less confident. If a dog lacks confidence, it will lack confidence whether it has testosterone or not - there will be a key underlying reason for that dog's lack of confidence - not because it is missing its 'bits'. One should look at that and tackle the underlying problem (usually a lack of early socialisation).

Actually, no.

She mentioned how unfair it was to have the dog in the room whilst people were eating, yes.

Not ONCE did she mention that it is unfair to LEAVE a dog with food and expect him NOT to eat it.

We all know your thoughts on castration Patty, so hey, lets leave that one, i have plenty of evidence in my own dogs that castration can have negative side effects, so you can chunter on that it doesnt all you like, i know otherwise.

The fact remains that i cannot see ANY reason to believe that castrating that dog would have improved his stealing or his biting behaviour, and i am worried that again, castration is being promoted as a 'cure all' which it is not.

Em

"Chuntering on."  That's a bit of a derogatory description isn't it?

I think I heard Ms Sitwell talk about the use of "neutering in conjunction with a training program."  I didn't have the impression that it was being promoted as a cure all BUT I don't understand why she recommended it in this case, as the behaviours did not appear to be hormonally driven.

As they say, castration will only help with problems which are hormonally-driven. I've never heard that nipping/biting was among these.

Hi Lillith,

Yes it is, but some people are not capable of having a normal debate without getting personal and derrogatory. Best thing to do in those circumstances is ignore it and let their true colours shine through.

I agree with you, she never said castration was a cure all. Another example of people turning things around incorrectly.

Best wishes,
Patty

I really, really didn't mean to call her Ms Sitwell on purpose.  Total Freudian slip.

Has anyone ever had someone take over their dog for example in ringcraft when the dog was refusing to behave for you then along comes somebody else and the dog behaves like a angel?  I do wonder how much of this is a big influence as well.

At the end of the day I think it is possible to analyis these things too much.  I am thinking of writing into the next series for a group session.  She can start with the kids, next beagie, then the dallies and lastly hubby. ;)

Oh absolutely! Dogs often treat their owners with contempt, and listen to a stranger!

Can't remember how many episodes of this that I've seen, but I'm sure she recommended castration in the other/s that I saw.

And she definitely does seems to be promoting "castration cure all". Which is misleading.

Seeing as she comes across as a bit of a dominatrix, wonder if she thinks that all men should be castrated to cure their "behavioural problems"?

Does anybody know if she's actually got any dogs of her own?

Apparently not.

No she hasn't got a dog of her own.

>>No she hasn't got a dog of her own.

Then I wouldn't trust her to train my dog, same as I wouldn't eat food cooked by a thin chef!

My hubby is a chef, and when I met him he was a measly 11 stone, thin as a board - but trust me, I'd eat his food ;)

I don't think not owning a dog has anything to do with her skills whatsoever - but then we've had this discussion before :p

I would have thought it would have thought it would be very difficult for her to have enough time for a dog of her own?

Yes Natalie, but surely she's not working all of the time........in fact, I'd be very surprised if she is.

And just because you work doesn't mean you can't have a dog. What's wrong with taking the dog with you? ;) Especially the field that she has chosen to work in, I'd say not having a dog is a little strange, practice what you preach and all that :D

Not starting a debate on full time work and dogs, that's been done to death on here, but look at other trainers/behaviourists, nearly all of them have dogs. But then that could be because they have a real love of dogs and don't just look at them as a media/ cashcow opportunity.