Cesar Millan was just down the road from me....

The other day while out walking my dog I came across a nice couple with a Border Terrier, we were having a nice chat while our dogs were getting to know each other and the husband produced a picture on his phone of Cesar Millan holding his dog with his trade mark smile....

He was doing some secret filming just down the road from me for his UK tour that finished recently, this couple had been asked to come along and act as 'stooges' with their dog, as it happened their dog did not meet the behaviour required and they were not needed....

They were told they could still meet Cesar after the filming if they wanted to, which they did, they explained to me that Cesar turned up well before the filming started and stayed on long after it finished to chat with all the people that had bought their dogs along to help with the filming, in their view it was clear how hard Cesar works and you could see he genuinely and sincerely loves dogs.....

My own view of him is that recently he has become too much of a brand name for the TV company and has been pushed down avenues best left alone....ie with so called wolfdogs....real wolfdogs would never respond to his techniques in my view which I have learnt from people in the know.....

Perhaps Steve Irwin would still be alive today if he hadn't let TV companies take him down avenues best left alone...ie stick to things he knew....crocodiles and snakes and gave sting rays a wide birth.....

As an owner of a wolfdog, I would say that I agree James. I might not have said this before, because I personally do not like the "hype" that surrounds wolf crosses. At the end of the day, ALL dogs are wolves, your little Max is a wolf, my Tai is a wolf, my daughter's chihuahua Gucci is a wolf. But ... as Napoleon the pig said in Animal Farm ... some animals are more equal than others.

Certainly my Hal did not take kindly to discipline. Had Cesar Millan handled him like he handled Shadow in that famous clip, Hal would have reacted in exactly the same way that Shadow did. As far as wolf crosses are concerned, Cesar has a lot to learn. Maybe he has learned now, as the Shadow incident must have been some time ago. But at the time, I remember reading an article on the internet that said that he HAD learned a lesson as far as wolf crosses are concerned. I am a firm believer in learning through experience, through our mistakes. I thought, have always thought, that a wolf cross was no different than an ordinary dog, maybe more "street wise", certainly a better sense of smell, more instinctive, but it is more than this. They are different ... a good analogy would be to compare me, an ordinary English woman, to a Masai tribeswoman. We are both Homo Sapiens, but she can walk many miles carrying a heavy load of firewood on her head. However, she would not be able to do my job as a medical secretary in the Anaesthetics Department of a busy General Hospital. She could not survive in my world, I could not survive in her's. So it is with the wolf cross ... same genetic makeup, different lifestyle, different way of responding to pack demands.

In Cesar's 2nd book he spends a page talking about wolf hybrids saying they should be treated as semi wild animals and the normal dog rules do not apply...he refers to a guy called Clint Rowe who uses his wolf hybrids in films portraying them as wolves and Clint mentions that you need a different approach with these types compared to domestic dogs, this was a few years before the 'shadow' instance you mention, that tells me Cesar already knew he could be on dodgy ground and confirms my suspicion he was forced down this road by the TV companies.....

Also its seems every effort was made to delete the 'Shadow' seen from the internet.....it disappeared from the Nat Geo website and for a while was deleted on You Tube.....

I doubt very much that 'Shadow' was even a wolf hybrid.....more likely an Inuit of some sort......

I find it hard to be too critical of Cesar Millan himself, reading Shaun Ellis book its clear the incredible pressures TV companies can put on even the strongest of characters....its hard for us I believe to judge unless we have been put in similar circumstances.....

While I believe Cesar Millans pack theories are flawed as they are based on what it was thought how wolves behaved 20 years or so ago he does have much to offer in many other areas but most people only mention his use of dominance, not many talk about his other methods in regards of fulfilling the needs of a dog in order of animal.....dog.....then breed......

After all he has enabled hundreds of people to find a way to live with their dogs when the only alternative offered by other behaviourists or vets was to have the dog destroyed.....

Shadow IMO is/was (not sure if he is still alive) a wolf hybrid. I have a lot of personal experience ... you can call him a Northern Inuit, a Ute, a wolf cross, a whatever cross, he is what he is, and my personal belief is that he is/was a wolf cross ... I don't care about the name!

I like what you say about Cesar in your final paragraph ... at the end of the day, this is what it is all about. My own personal regret is that I "found" him too late to be able to really get to grips with Hal and truly understand him. We had a year only of life with Hal using calm assertive energy ... it was so truly amazing and revolutionary, words cannot describe it. Not a jot, iota or a whisker of that dog's personality was ruined, broken or spoiled in any way. He used to look at us as if you say "blimey, at LAST after all these years you have learned how to get through to me".

Cesar's pack theories are not flawed ... it is possibly his interpretation of them that is flawed. He is achieving the same ends without interpreting correctly how he is getting there ... the means. He is right when he says first and foremost a dog is a dog (a wolf in other words). Following that, is the breed. The breed is the icing on the cake, it is not the cake itself, the real guts of the matter. My daughter's Chihuahua may look like an abortion of nature, but he is just as much a "wolf" as any more "natural" looking breed ... a direct descendent of the wolf.