Advice from Cesar Millan

[.sarah]

I watched him last night and found him quite interesting. So I decided to try out his techniques on the Collies. The goal: for less barking, especially when I'm not outside with them.

I put 12 inch leash tabs on their collars this morning, so I could control them all day. I started by making them "Sit" and "Wait" for about a minute before letting them outside. I usually make them wait at doors and don't have issues with bolting, but it's a casual wait for a few seconds and I don't usually make them do a formal "Sit" or "Down".

Everytime they started barking at something, I did that "ssstttt" sound to stop the behavior that Cesar makes, put them in a "Down" and didn't release them until they showed calm and submissive gestures. As long as they were alert and anxious, they stayed in the down. When I released them, I threw a toy for them to fetch and we'd play a lil'.

I followed through the same routine inside the house too. So we did this all day long. The transformation was amazing. This is the quietest night I can remember in a long time. They are being so calm. I took Oz to Petsmart and he's always so excited there. So many people to meet and greet. Oh my gosh, he was much calmer. He still wanted to meet everybody, but he wasn't as rambunctious trying to jump on them.

I'm going to do this all week and see if it totally solves my outside barking issue. I'll report back, with the results.

Par...

That's really neat. I wish I had seen that episode. Nova is really bad about barking outside, and Mandy's bad about barking inside. lol. Luka is a *very* quiet dog. She just grunts every now and then, like when she changes sleeping positions

[lizbud]

A good article on Cesar Millan.


http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0120/p13s01-altv.html

[Ravette]

lol I wanna come now I live in Oregon so I could travel to one of his ones in CA.

Yeah thats one of the things I love most about him is that he makes the owners work with the dogs too.

I am a huge pit lover having owned a couple so I'd love to see Cesar teach the rescue community about ways to help agressive/problem dogs not just putting them down as fast as possible.