There are a huge number of people who dislike Cesar Milan. To me it is very strange, but I'll try to look past that and instead talk a little about why I like him so much. I might squeeze in a little bit about why I think others dislike him so much. We'll see what fits in this post. 😀
I follow Cesar Milan on Youtube. I don't see all his uploads, menu in the. Today I was caught by the title of this video where he spends ten minutes talking about why, in his eyes, understanding dog psychology is more important than training your dog. And he explains it very well – and he means the same way I do when I believe it is more important to devote yourself to communicating with the dog in a way it automatically understands (energy, body language, intention and so on) than training in, for the dog, unnatural behaviors.
It's nothing wrong to train your dog. I train very little with Boyo, but you know what? He is a very sensible dog anyway, even though we exercise so little. He is as he is, not because i (not) trained him, but because I am who I am when we are together – and we are together all the time. In the same way that children learn different things depending on how their parents behave around them (rather than being trained in every behavior the parents want), so dogs learn to function in a certain way depending on how the people around them behave around them.
It really is not weirder than that.
There are many way to live together with your dog. Some people think that it is very important to exercise, train, train, and spends an enormous amount of time on it. Other, such as me for example, investing more in what I choose to call natural communication. Still others don't care much for either, but at least their dogs become helpfully functional anyway.
I think so myself, like Cesar Milan, that it is the relationship with the dog that is most important. I know most people, at least those who engage exclusively in positive reinforcement, believes that the relationship is built through training. I am of a different opinion.
Train a dog makes one engage in behaviors that are not natural to it. Everyone can use positive reinforcement (I do with that – where it fits), and make the dog do this or that.
But in mine eyes are training, regardless of which method is used, not automatically something that makes the dog respect you, that the dog trusts you, that the dog turns to you for guidance. It is something that has to come from yourself; who you are, not what training method you use.
And this is the main reason why I like Cesar Milan. Because he sees the dog species as an animal first and foremost, and has chosen to have a certain approach to them (animals in general) which most people may not have. He chooses to use what I believe is a more natural way of approaching dogs (animal), to get around dogs (animal), he chooses to have one connection to animals that follow a different path than through training. And it works.
I think most people who dislike Cesar Milan do so because they can only imagine how he handled difficult dogs in the first TV series – Dog Whisperer. According to most people, I understand, was he violent, dodge, excessively “dominant” (there we have that word again), and used both methods and tools that are prohibited in Sweden.
The question is what whoever does not like to see it, would have done instead. My understanding is that many of the dogs that participated in all those seasons of Dog Whisperer were very hard cases. I myself have never handled such a dog and I don't know if I would dare – but me hair handled dogs that many others probably wouldn't be able to handle. In situations where you have a dog that behaves like an ass in one way or another, it is not time to engage in training – then it's time to deal with the situation, and that is something completely different.
When handling a dog who for some reason has lost himself – for example, so high that it doesn't hear or understand but just keeps behaving badly, or a dog that takes liberties without asking permission, a dog freaking out in rage – then you only have yourself to use. The best thing you can do for both yourself and the dog is not to freak out yourself, without remaining calm and composed – and sometimes you may actually have to grab the dog, purely physical.
I do not think that Cesar Milan in any way believes that one should be violent towards a dog. I think rather the opposite (and consider it yourself, in addition) that Cesar Milan prefers preventive work, to ensure that the dog is never in such bad condition that it freaks out. But also that if it happens, or if you have a dog that is difficult in one way or another right in front of you, then you need to have other tools at hand to get through the situation. And when I say tools, I don't mean hammers or the like, but rather precisely – itself, one's ability to remain calm and composed, to know how to behave to bring the dog back down to earth. Without violence as far as possible, but if you are attacked, it may be necessary to get physical.
It is completely optionally, what you want to think and think about Cesar Milan. But to dislike him because he handles dogs where it has gone so far that they are more or less dangerous and no one else has managed to help them, gets a little silly. I personally think that these dogs are rather proof that many people in the United States have no idea what they are doing when it comes to dogs. If you are unable to raise your dog – there, then it is easy for them to become monsters.
There are some few dog people I really like, and Cesar Milan is one of them. I like everything? Well, maybe not. But I really like his basic philosophy which is about energy, natural communication – and to build the relationship with the dog based on that, rather than exercise.