Behaviorism vs Cesar Millan

[MercurySunlight]

I'm putting this thread in the Science & Technology section due to the fact that the opponents of Cesar's work with dogs used science as their primary argument against his philosophies. This thread could also be placed in the Education forum.

When Cesar first came onto the scene back in 2004, I was originally excited to see someone approach dealing with canine social issues from a fresh perspective, and one I personally understood. Like Cesar, I spent most of my childhood years in the company of dogs rather than other children. I was able to connect with and train our family dog (mostly through trial and error) using a combination of Operant Conditioning and Classical Conditioning, without having read or studied any of what we now understand today through the scientists who were pioneers these fields of research. Later on, when I was approximately 10 years of age, a neighbor introduced me to some basic training techniques which he was using to train his retriever. I now understand what I was doing and why it worked, even though I didn't understand what I was using at the time.

Over the years I learned some basics of Koehler and also studied how performing animals, such as dolphins, were trained using whistles and fish rewards. But, there was often something missing in the connection that I had experienced personally when working with my dogs, and then later with my horse. It was like the training choices were either manipulation of the animals with food, or the intimidation of the animal through harsh corrective force, with no middle ground among the training community. There also appeared to be a lack of understanding of how each individual species communicated and/or interpreted their world in their own language and psychology.

Enter Cesar. I thought to myself "Wow. Isn't this great. Now we have someone who can give as a look into the dog's point of view and maybe bridge the gap between the opposing sides of the great dog training debate." How wrong I was. Attempting to discuss anything regarding his philosophies in the dog training forums and other platforms, all conversation was immediately shut down and anyone who brought up the subject, was drawn, quartered, and devoured. His philosophies and methods were deemed cruel and unscientific by the wave of new age dog trainers who often proclaimed themselves "kinder, gentler, and purely positive". The majority of his attackers were also women. I did find much more acceptance from the more Koehler based trainers, who were mostly men, but also had a fair proportion of women trainers among their ranks. Eventually, "Balanced Training" started to be incorporated and a middle ground was reached, but not with the evangelical female type trainers on what we might call the far left of dog training.

Now, there is also another area outside of the dog training circles which Cesar brought to light. This was the understanding that dogs don't think like humans. Dogs have their own language and forms of communication. Dogs have their own psychology. And, although dogs can learn to understand human words, their meanings, and also human behavior, they initially view and read us in "dog".

My proposal, is that Cesar is correct and a whole lot more. Cesar's work incorporates a social component which was missing from the original experiments in Operant and Classical Conditioning. I discovered this Social Learning component through the work of Professor Albert Bandura back in around 2009, or slightly before. And, I'm clearly not the only one who made this discovery. Back when I was doing random searches of "social learning dogs" there was only one experiment out there having to do with dogs learning from other dogs in a sort of "V" maze. Today, this same search will lead to the mention of Albert Bandura and how his experiments in Social Learning can be applied to dogs.

Any thoughts, arguments, and/or personal experiences are most welcome.

[Jsbrads]

Positive reinforcement isn’t manipulating the dog with food. The dog gets all the food he needs everyday from you.

additionally, the social component, dogs enjoy every part of the training process, much like you enjoy spending time with friends. The pets and the treats aren’t that important, it is your communication, your feedback that tells them that you are happy.

also, when interacting with a Master, dogs better understand their place in the world and this has a calming effect.