Dog Philosophy (The Dog Whisperer)

I've been a dog owner most of my life -- my parents had dogs, too -- and I like the critters. Better than I like a lot of people, to be honest. But learning how dogs work has been a long and slow process. (Not just for me, it seems, but for the world in general.)

Each time we get another dog, we try to apply the lessons we learned from the previous one, to make the dog's life, and ours, better.

Currently, my wife and I have two dogs -- a very old German Shepherd and a young Cardigan Corgi. We lost our female shepherd Cady a year or so back, and she was the dog of a lifetime -- smart, funny, and spoiled. We loved her, but we couldn't take her anywhere there were other dogs because she went into a barking frenzy and we never learned how to stop it.

We loved her, but we weren't the best owners -- she could have had a much richer life if we could have taken her places like an outdoor cafe to lie at our feet and enjoy the passersby.

So with the new pup -- Jude -- we started socializing him early. Puppy classes, walks where we'd run into other dogs, visits to the pet store, like that, and so far that has worked -- he doesn't woof at others, and he gets along well with them.

But Jude is hard-headed and wants to be dominant, and we've had to work to keep him from taking over.

Enter Cesar Millan, aka "The Dog Whisperer," (National Geographic Channel.) We came across him in the New Yorker, liked what we read, and then found the TV show.

What he offers seems to be common sense: Exercise, discipline, affection. But more important, perhaps, is his admonition that dogs are not humans in fur suits, but animals with their own psychology. He teaches what he sees as pack-leader behavior. And his idea seems to be that you can have a well-behaved dog without breaking his spirit or hurting him, and you do it by becoming the alpha dog of your own pack.

Essentially, teaching the dog's owner how to be a dog ...

Cesar is from Mexico, got his training informally, no degrees. A lot of what he does seems to be intuitive, and based on his experience with particularly aggressive dogs. And in the dog-training world, he gets a lot of flak. Some of this is due to honest differences of training philosophy. Some of it is probably due to jealously -- here's this uneducated guy from Mexico who has his own TV show and books and seminars doing pretty well for himself essentially telling folks what seems too easy -- exercise your dog, correct him when he does something you think he shouldn't, and love on him when he behaves well.

I've had dog trainers look at me and go, "Well, duh!" but you speak to a passing parade and if you haven't heard it before, it can be a revelation.

Some academic dog experts come absolutely unglued at these notions, and sound and look like Donald Duck having a temper tantrum ...

I don't expect that that man is perfect -- nobody bats a thousand -- and now that he is well-known and well-0ff, there have been a couple of lawsuits. One from somebody about his dog, the other from a business partner who wants credit and/or money. I can't speak to the merits of these cases, but I find it interesting that such things tend to crop up more often once somebody gets a high profile.

And I'd like to see some episodes of the show with outtakes that better demonstrate the idea that you aren't always going to solve a dog's problems in a twenty-minute segment of an hour-long show, because certainly that won't be the case.

What I have found is that the techniques Cesar offers (with all the disclaimers that say not to try this at home without a professional) have been immediately helpful with my Corgi pup, and I'm happy that I came across the guy.

Worth a look if you have a dog that has problems. In my opinion.