Hi everyone. i'm Dr. Orion. a veterinarian and a veterinary behavior residency graduate.
today i'm going to do something a little bit different from the things that i usually do.
so that's why i'm not starting with a dad joke. but don't worry, i'll do it in the next videos.
today i'm going to do a reaction video and i'm going to do the reaction video to Caesar Milan.
now most of you probably know him, especially if you're watching my videos about behavior then it's
very likely that at least you heard the name. he's very very very famous, very well known. but is
he right? does the things that he say and does in his videos are actually a good idea or not?
let's check it out. what is her name? her name is gypsy. okay. and your name? my name
is cindy? mrs. cindy. nice to meet you. let's bring out the lawn mower and see what she...
right there. right there. she is telling you how she feels about it. okay. so he's bringing
the lawnmower or mow lower. i don't know why i keep saying it wrongly. and many dogs are
very very fearful of the sound that the lawnmower makes. or maybe the movement. i don't know. but it
is very very common. so let's see what happens with this dog. this is a lawnmower off so the mind
is already saying that thing that moves eventually has a sound. all right. that's actually very true.
i mean you can see that the dog is already showing signs of anxiety. and i mean, i know
he probably knows that. this dog is afraid of the lawnmower and that's why he's actually doing this
specific thing. but yes. the dog here is showing all the signs of anxiety or many signs of anxiety,
and don't don't be mistaken by the fact that the dog is actually approaching the lawnmower.
many times fear will result in, you know, trying to attack or trying to approach whatever fear
making you be fearful. kind of to get you away. kinda keep you away from me.
then they begin to follow it. see now go all the way and then you're going to turn it on.
okay so there is some editing here because the dog was far away and all of a sudden dog is very
close to the lawnmower. but it does seem like the second that they turn on the mower then the
dog starts lunging towards it. exactly like i said before. any time because of the fear
they they basically go into fight or flight. in this case maybe the fight
is stronger and the dog is attacking the lawnmower. no. we took the, we took the blade off.
oh my goodness. i'm happy and there's actually good... good thinking that
they did take the blade out because you never know. dog can actually hurt himself.
it's all about where you place the leash, okay.
all right. we're gonna keep it right. what is he doing? so we're stopping the pulling, okay?
so why is he putting a choke color on the dog? so now she... no. she can't move towards it. she have
to watch. okay, true. he did stop the pulling by forcing the dog into kind of... into submission,
right? the dog is wearing a choke leash or choke collar and can't really respond, but if you look
at this dog. look how he keeps lip licking. that's a very good sign for for anxiety and fear so
this dog is actually being forced into a situation that he cannot escape. now think about it this
way. let's say that you're afraid of spiders and now i'm holding you in the room with the spider,
and every time that you try to, i don't know, run away and step on the spider, or sorry not run away
run towards the spider and step on it, i hope you don't but let's say that this is what you usually
do in order to you know stop the threat from the spider every time you want to do it i actually
come and slap you in the face. that's basically what he's doing with the choke collar. will that
make you feel any better or any worse? and also. he does this. i guess to get the dog's attention.
i mean that's not the end of the world but let's say that he did get the dog's attention. he did
break dog's concentration. concentrating on the fearful stimuli. in this case the lawnmower.
then what i mean. now you actually want to have the dog receive something pleasant.
right? you want the dog to actually make a better association. and also he's saying
that the dog is not pulling anymore, but also the lawnmower is not on. and we actually saw
earlier that the dog wasn't really pulling that much when the lawnmower was off. stay.
no tension on the leash. no anticipation. stop it right there.
so we're doing step one. eyes, and you master that. then the brain learn. okay. so when i see
that i don't get excited then you bring sound. you want to turn around right there. we're going to
prepare. okay. the good and the bad. uh, for this point. he is doing what's called flooding. he is
putting the dog in a situation that the dog cannot escape, and the dog is known to be afraid of.
he's not doing it gradually. just putting the dog there. so this is very bad. it might actually
make everything worse. the only thing that i do agree that he's doing well is the fact that he
he is moving the lawnmower without the sound and kind of building up to the more
higher levels. but this dog... it's, it's too soon for this dog to to be near... near a lawnmower.
and i actually didn't watch this video before so i don't know what's gonna happen, but i'm guessing
that the dog is going to show many more signs of stress once they turn on the lawnmower. probably
will try to bark and lunge. the way that... and that Mr Milan usually works means that
he's going to force the dog down and do his "ch" and kind of make him stay in that situation.
and the dog will actually not learn anything. the the only thing that might happen in the
end is that the dog will have what we call a learned helplessness. the dog learns that
there's nothing else that he can do but to stop because whenever he does bark... whenever he does
show signs of stress, he will be corrected. but let's see. maybe i'm wrong. i hope that i'm wrong.
normal to see that.
so the dog is lunging even... even before he actually turned on the
lawnmower. because he knows what's going to happen. dog is very smart.
wow, yes.
they're clapping their hands but the lawnmower is also stationary so it's not the same level as
a moving lawnmower, and after he already kind of forced the dog into staying... into submission...
look how many times this dog is lip licking. now she's in a follower state. right now is the sound.
moving away from... from the thing that scares her. for him that's, that's very bad. so
this is... this is all i'm gonna watch in this episode, if you like the way that i kind of review
this, uh these videos, let me know. i can do more videos by, uh, Cesar Millan or by other trainers,
good and bad. by the way, i'm happy to do other trainers that i actually do agree with. the the
take-home message that i would like you to know is that the fact that someone is famous doesn't make
them right. i know i know he's very popular. i think that he even had some influence on me
getting into the field, and i, also before i knew that the scientific literature actually shows that
the techniques that... that he's using, like the flooding and correcting and the alpha dominance
theory, and all of that are actually wrong, i also thought that, yeah... that all sounds very very,
i mean it all makes sense. it sounds very logical, right? uh, dogs are like wolves (well... they're
not. and actually wolves are also not alpha. and all these dominance theory... but that's
for a different video) but so let's... let's kind of wrap it up. good things in the video
he is trying to kind of raise the level, raise the bar for the dog's stimulus. stimulus
starting from like, a more far away, and then close to the dog, and then turning it on.
the bad thing is that he's using an aversive technique with the choke colar. he's not using
any reinforcer. he's kind of flooding the dog and forcing the dog to stay in place. and, uh,
and the level, i mean, the the the speed of moving from one level to another is really too fast,
really really really fast, crazy fast. that's it. i hope you enjoyed it as much as, i can't say i
enjoyed the video that much, but i enjoyed making the video. i hope you learned something. see ya'.