Erika/Bckrazy, thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!

If the above barrage of links doesn't convince you, here's a book review of "Cesar's Way" written by a veterinarian for the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior:
http://www.avsabonline.org/avsabonli...r%20review.pdf

The American Veterinary Medical Associations take on Cesar's endorsement of compulsion training methods:
http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/feb08/080215l.asp

AVSAB's take on the pitfalls of punishment:
http://www.avsabonline.org/avsabonli...sk=view&id=118

Bottom line: Domesticated dogs are NOT wolves. DOGS act more like extremely immature/juvenile wolves more than the coherent, stable pack of mature adults that Cesar would like you to believe. Dogs bark a LOT, whine a LOT, furiously wag their tails, etc. etc. - all behaviors that mature wolves do not regularly display.

The dominance myth has really been distorted to an absurd point. There are common arguments that claim something as mundane as a jumping puppy will turn into a dominant adult. So, then, how does one explain a jumping puppy's lip licking, whining, held back ears, etc.? If one has ever seen a band of puppies approach an older dog, the puppies will perform these behaviors while simultaneously *licking the other dog's lips*. As chance would have it, HUMAN lips are taller than the average puppy. Ergo, the puppy must jump to reach. It's not dominance. It's perfectly normal dog behavior. But somehow, we repudiate normal DOG behavior and instead substitute it with our skewed view of "acceptable" WOLF behavior.

So why is Cesar seemingly "effective"? The answer is that, whether we'd like to admit it or not, punishment often works to suppress behavior. If you hit (or, as Cesar likes to put it, "assertively touch") a dog every time he approaches a bone, that dog will learn to avoid the bone to avoid the punishment. He doesn't learn self-control. He learns FEAR. Punishment works to suppress behavior. But in and of itself, punishment is no substitution for behavioral modification, and punishment must be used only by those who know how and when to use it. And nobody should use the level of punishment that Cesar uses.