# Do you see the irony?



## Naira (Jan 9, 2015)

Haha it cracks me up how your dogs watch tv. I don't usually have time to watch TV and don't have cable, but Naira looks at my computer screen sometimes to check out what I'm doing.


----------



## Axeldog (Aug 29, 2014)

So hilarious! 

(I can't get over Sherlocks almost cat-like sense of balance)


----------



## Starree (Feb 14, 2015)

I don't think he is close enough.


----------



## Caddy (Nov 23, 2014)

Hahaha that's amazing, and the balance! 
When we settle in to watch a little TV at night Abbey sits between us and I find myself watching her more than the TV. She's intense, and the looks and neck movements she goes through keep me watching her.


----------



## Poodlerunner (Jul 4, 2014)

They are laughing at all the pit bulls. 

sorry.

pr


----------



## The Opera Poodle (Dec 19, 2012)

I posted this to Reddit and just got blasted for watching Cesar 911. I had to explain that I turn the TV on for the dogs and they don't know what he is saying. We watch Air Bud too but I don't think either the dogs or I thing dogs can speak English. It is hard for me to find shows with dogs all the way through since I don't have cable. Netflix and Youtube are my choices. Some people are so bossy.


----------



## patk (Jun 13, 2013)

you just ran into the cesar haters. they used to chase folks off pf, too. funny thing is that some of the haters are defenders of pitbulls, just like cesar. there's more than one irony in life, eh?


----------



## The Opera Poodle (Dec 19, 2012)

This person when on and on about how the only way to train a dog was positive re-enforcement. I agree for the most part, but I believe you have to use punishment for anything that could kill or harm your dog. Like eating from the trash or trying to dart away from you in a traffic area. I scold very rarely. But when I do they know I mean it and it is effective.

The other thing was her problem with the hierarchy view. While I have mixed feelings as to how important it is that your dog see you are pack leader, I think that the fact that a person is training their dog at all outweighs bickering with them on how they are doing it. Other than beating your dog to teach them a lesson, any training is better than none at all. Untrained dogs end up in shelter. Sigh.

I told the woman she had just used negative re-enforcement on me by calling me out on a public forum. I haven't heard back. Perhaps she is trying to train me with the silent treatment


----------



## patk (Jun 13, 2013)

the positive only types are actually distorting the science they claim to rely on. they are in denial about such things as what purpose leashes, for example, serve, even when used in the gentlest of ways. same for harnesses, head halters, etc. hard to respect people like that. mostly, though, they are not due any respect when their behavior toward fellow human beings exemplifies verbal abuse. can't trust anyone that hypocritical.


----------



## poolann (Jan 31, 2013)

We're getting off track here. The picture is adorable!!

OAN I really can't stand Cesar. However, it's your home & you have the ability to watch whatever you or your dogs like ;-) I prefer to train in a positive way & I don't buy in to "alpha" theory but I feel you have to find balance as a trainer. You also have to be able to read & acknowledge a dog's communication (I feel Cesar completely disregards this information.) I also am an advocate for training pits & happily accept them in classes keeping in mind that a group class is not suitable for any aggressive dog regardless of breed. I read this article the other day & I really really like this trainer's perspective. https://paws4udogs.wordpress.com/2015/03/16/why-im-not-a-force-free-trainer/


----------



## The Opera Poodle (Dec 19, 2012)

poolann said:


> We're getting off track here. The picture is adorable!!
> 
> OAN I really can't stand Cesar. However, it's your home & you have the ability to watch whatever you or your dogs like ;-) I prefer to train in a positive way & I don't buy in to "alpha" theory but I feel you have to find balance as a trainer. You also have to be able to read & acknowledge a dog's communication (I feel Cesar completely disregards this information.) I also am an advocate for training pits & happily accept them in classes keeping in mind that a group class is not suitable for any aggressive dog regardless of breed. I read this article the other day & I really really like this trainer's perspective. https://paws4udogs.wordpress.com/2015/03/16/why-im-not-a-force-free-trainer/


Great article. Makes so many good points. And I love the Sugar Free analogy.


----------



## Indiana (Sep 11, 2011)

I am always in a state of flux about this subject (love Sherlock on the back of the loveseat by the way!!); I know that Maddy knows I don't want her to yank on the leash on our runs, but sometimes she does it anyway because it's fun, there are deer, and she thinks she can get away with it. I have taken to bringing a little baggy of sauteed turkey strips in my pocket, which I show her beforehand and I say to her, "I have here a little baggy of turkey strips. If you don't pull on our run, you will get this whole bag of treats. Here, smell it. Yum, hey? If you do pull, the other dogs will get it all and you will get none." I truly believe she is smart enough to understand and a couple of times I actually did what I threatened, although it made me feel like A GREAT BIG JERK all day. Now that is either positive reinforcement (if she follows through), negative reinforcement (for her, if she forfeits), or negative reinforcement for me as it makes me feel so bad. Don't know, too confusing! All I know is, when we have a good run, we are SO HAPPY!!! p.s. I had a pitbull mix before the poodles; dumb as a bag full of hammers but a great family dog, never put a foot wrong in her whole life. Not saying the owner is more important than the breed, just saying we had maybe a one-off but she was great. Not a cuddler though. Died of old age and I still miss her.


----------



## patk (Jun 13, 2013)

i'm a believer in flexibility and treating the dog as an individual, but not of hitting or beating one's dog. my objection is not to the training method, but to the proponents of a training method who insist on positive only and then, as happened with opera poodle, verbally abuse someone who seems not to be a true believer. 

pitbulls i can't bring myself to defend - which doesn't mean someone didn't have one that was wonderful; i just think of them as time bombs. interestingly, by the way, i just read an article claiming that pitbulls are now outnumbered by chihuahuas or chihuahua mixes as the largest population of shelter dogs. we humans just can't seem to get it right about our canine pets and our responsibility for helping them to live successfully in human society.


----------



## sweetheartsrodeo (Sep 19, 2012)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the picture! Your dogs like furry little kids - probably smarter than most kids  

You totally made my night!


----------



## Erica (Feb 28, 2015)

Your pup has amazing balance! That is such a great picture.  One thing I will say about CM is that he is good at creating interesting television. 

(I can't watch it because I feel so bad for the dogs, and I'm a sponge that soaks up every influence so that the punishment styles start seeping into my interactions. I don't like that so I don't watch it.)

The issue I have with punishment-focused trainers is that their methods can easily lead to hurt, scared, and unpredictable dogs. I won't go on a rant here, but imo for most family dogs, badly applied positive reinforcement doesn't lead to aggression as easily as badly applied positive punishment (and if you've got any serious issues that need special training, well-applied R+ is a better bet). Our GSD is a good example of punishment fallout...she used to get excited when she saw other dogs, so our trainer stuck a prong collar on her and she only got worse, to the point that she would scream, lunge, and freak out if she saw another dog, even 100 yards away. After a couple years of that I matured, got fed up, did some research, and within a few weeks with R+ was able to walk her on a sidewalk past another dog who was lunging and snarling at her.

I just don't get why people think pit bulls (what kind of "pit bulls," incidentally? There are dozens of breeds under that umbrella!) are unpredictable. Heck, all of Delta's best friends are "pit bulls" - a staffy mix boy, an AmBully mix boy, and our neighbor's APBT girl. The only time I've known one to "snap" was when someone adopted a "pit bull" type dog, dog had separation anxiety, owners sent dog to punishment-based boot camp, dog came back "completely tame" (read: shut down and scared) and would do nothing without being instructed to...come 4th of July, the dog is hiding in a corner from fireworks at their party. Child comes up and grabs dog's face, dog bites child. Obvious causes to anyone who knows what they're looking for: dog was punished for giving safe warning signals like growls and air snaps, dog was in a highly stressful environment (loud unpredictable noises, multiple strangers), dog was cornered, dog had something unpleasant happen (face grabbed)...but the person who was relating this tale to me as proof of how "evil" "pit bulls" are couldn't understand what had happened until I pointed it out. 

Out of all the dogs in our neighborhood, the only one that's ever seriously bitten anyone in my 20 years living here was a poodle (not mine!) and we've had plenty of staffy mixes, APBT mixes, and some bull terriers too. There's a lot more potent predictors/factors in aggression than breed; obviously genetics have a lot to do with it, but within any breed you can get a variety of temperaments.


----------



## patk (Jun 13, 2013)

unfortunately, i dealt with an elderly neighbor who was attacked for no reason by a pitbull. she was walking by, the dog broke loose from its owner and attacked. the wife of the household was so shaken up by this totally unexpected and destructive behavior that eventually she told her husband she could not live with the dog around anymore and it was put down. in the meantime, i drove the woman who had been attacked back and forth to her doctor several times. it was pitiful to hear her say she wanted her life back. 

before that attack, none of us thought there was anything wrong with the dog. it did not seem vicious at all. there's a forum eric pointed us to for pitbull owners. the aggression trigger issue is accepted and there are discussions of what one has to do sometimes as an owner to live with that. not something i would choose. i'm a believer that dogs bred for aggression are iikely to be aggressive. even cesar millan talks about not letting his dog junior get in touch with his aggressive side. i guess people either believe in genetics or they don't.


----------



## Erica (Feb 28, 2015)

I believe in genetics, but I don't believe in genetics creating random attack switches. An average dog owner normally isn't able to really read dog body language...a friend of mine was surprised when she went up to a dog to pet it and it tried to bite her, because "Well it was wagging its tail so it must have been happy!" I really think there's more to it than "absolutely nothing caused this attack; the dog just randomly decided to bite someone." Can you point me towards any well-respected, well-studied trainers, or veterinary behaviorists, or geneticists, or anything beyond "someone who owns dogs" that holds the "there's a random aggression switch common in all the various breeds that are categorized as 'pit bulls' (even though they sometimes descend from completely different breeds)" viewpoint? 

Rage Syndrome aside (the only bully breed on the list of Rage Syndrome cases is Bull Terrier as far as I can find, and they're typically not what people think of as "pit bulls"), unfounded aggression out of the blue isn't a common thing. I agree that dogs can have aggression issues because of a genetic basis (especially in like, guarding breeds towards humans, and in fighting breeds towards other dogs, and in hunting breeds towards other animals), but it would be something seen quickly, not something that happens years into a dog's life after peaceful living. Medical issues are explainable - brain tumors/lesions, pain, one dog (some kind of shepherd) in a friend's training class was a great dog but "randomly" bit the owner's grandmother. They took him to the vet and he had a tumor pressing on his optic nerve, causing pain and blindness. The dog was legally ordered to be put down for aggression even though the vets were optimistic that removing the tumor would restore the dog's previous temperament. 

I think it was in one of Patricia McConnell's books (though it's been ages since I read the passage I'm thinking of) that she recounted a case where a dog would be "randomly" aggressive towards people...but they did find a pattern. The people the dog would behave aggressively towards had recently eaten pizza. The owners then remembered an incident where a pizza delivery person had intimidated/hurt the dog, causing the dog to link the smell of pizza with unpleasant experiences. It seems random until you figure out the cause, but the cause was there! Without knowing and studying each dog's history, it's difficult to say what experiences might lead to aggressive behavior. A better understanding of dog behavior makes it easier to predict, and if the average dog owner would put more effort towards understanding this (and CM would stop spreading false information on "dominant" and "submissive" states...he's been bitten too many times for me to think he's any good at body language! And he said the bite he got from a snarling labrador was "out of the blue..." smh) then there would be a lot fewer dog attacks. There will probably always be dogs who have a medical or neurological condition that goes undetected until the critical threshold is reached and they bite, but it's difficult to think of any way to prevent that.

I'm rambling, haha. Been a long day and I should have gone to bed hours ago. Sorry if any of this is difficult to follow! *But the simplified version of my thoughts is "there's always an explanation beyond 'yeah the dog just turned into a monster for no reason.'"*

I'll dig out my copy of "Dogs Bite: But Balloons and Slippers are More Dangerous" tomorrow. It's a good book and a great resource for anyone looking to learn more about dogs and dog bites.


----------



## The Opera Poodle (Dec 19, 2012)

My grandmother was attacked by a pit when she was in her 80's (who had been a doted on family pet for years and years - and Grandma wasn't moving fast.) I have had two pit attacks on dogs I have owned that required a vet visit. When I worked with a shelter, other than a million small dog bites, the only bite I got that left a scar was from a pit...

They all weren't owned by the same person or were from the same type of environment. The only bond was they were at least 50% pit. No one can tell me it is not innate in the breed to snap and attack.

My poodles had no idea they were breed to be water dogs decades ago, but they sure knew it when they saw it. Do 100% poodles like water? No. But if a dog in water caused death and permanent scarring, enough would do it to warrant a ban on poodles. 

I am so sick of this living here in Houston and seeing the deaths and maulings. I'm tempted to go by a pit and a gun just to fit in. Least ways, I can then shoot my dog when he attacks someone and be the hero for saving a life. 

And yes, he does have cat like balance.


----------



## Viking Queen (Nov 12, 2014)

Opera Poodle,

I am so sorry to hear that your Grandmother and two of your dogs have had to endure pitbull attacks. It is , indeed horrifying. I share your dislike and distrust of the bully breeds which are to me, untrustworthy.

My girl, Iris was attacked, totally unprovoked, by a friends pit/lab mix, a dog who had shared a yard with for nearly 3 years. They were peaceful, playful companions for 3 years and one day while I was 1 foot away from both dogs the agressor just sauntered up to Iris, who was standing staring off across the yard, and suddenly with no change in body language or demeanor this dog launched on Iris' neck and the war was on to separate them. Iris was torn up badly and quite traumatized emotionally. Still is terrified when she sees a dog similar to her attacker. Had I had a handgun on me that dog would have been dead on the spot. With no remorse from me.

My former friend still has this dog which has since attacked a beagle, labradoodle and an akita. I am surprised the akita didn't kill her but she got the drop on the akita's neck. All attacks were unprovoked, witnessed by others and were awful. Why he has kept her is beyond me. He has two other dogs who live with him and they are unscathed....so far. This is irresponsible ownership and I guess an attack of a human would have to be what would cause him to put her down. I have old him she is a ticking time bomb ....i have told him I would have destroyed the dog if she were mine. No avail...no longer friends.

Opera poodle, I just have to say the latest picture of your two kids watching TV is a real treat. they are so intensely involved. And the balancing act on the furniture, sheer artistry. Love seeing your two kids and hearing about your adventures. Viking Queen


----------



## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

Erica said:


> Your pup has amazing balance! That is such a great picture.  One thing I will say about CM is that he is good at creating interesting television.
> 
> (I can't watch it because I feel so bad for the dogs, and I'm a sponge that soaks up every influence so that the punishment styles start seeping into my interactions. I don't like that so I don't watch it.)
> 
> ...


Thank you for this post.:adore: Now I don't have to write practically the same thing. You stole the words right out of my key board. lol.

Opera Poodle, your photo is phenomenally cute. The one on the chair, without seeing the face looks like, "wha-a-a-a? What the heck?" And looks about to spring on outta there. The darker colored one on the floor (I can't remember which name goes with which dog) also looks poised to dart out of the room. I think as they watch Cesar, they're becoming horrified. :ahhhhh:


p.s. The ones who criticize those who criticize randomly pop on these threads and ironically criticize more than those they criticize for too much criticizing.:act-up:


----------

