Friday 30 January 2009

dog trainer Ian Dunbar

Slavenka has posted a link to an interesting talk by Ian Dunbar on dog training. An article in the San Francisco chronicle compares Dunbar's methods with those of Cesar Milan.

I admire Dunbar and I don't like Milan's creed that dogs are like wolves and need to be dominated. Dogs aren't wolves. Many thousands of years ago they diverged in their evolution and have lived alongside humans since then, adapting to our lifestyle.

6 comments:

Gussie said...

Thanks for sharing these links. I agree with your about Dunbar vs Milan! I was recently in the USA and was heartened to see Victoria Stillwell using clicker training and other positive methods on a US version of her UK show. Ironically she has disappeared from British screens and we are left with the rattle bottles on "Dog Borstal."

parlance said...

Gussie, I found an episode of Dog Borstal on Youtube. It was about Vaida, a boxer who was too exuberant. How sad to see her being pulled around like that. There was absolutely no acknowledgment that the dog might just have some intelligence and if they quietly showed her what they wanted, her behaviour might improve. I thought it made Me or the Dog look good! Thanks for the mention of the show - I had never heard of it.

Anonymous said...

Hi! I watched watched the clip and liked it. I'm going to look up more on him.

Any running picture will be great! It doesn't have to be new.

Wow, that is HOT!

Sharon& Rusty

Slavenka said...

"The return to dominance training such as Millan's, Dunbar says, is a disservice to dogs more than anything else."
This sentence is the essence of the article,right?

parlance said...

Sharon (and Rusty), we'll start looking out running pictures. I think your running day sounds like great fun! I'm hoping to see some snow-running shots!

parlance said...

Slavenka, you are so right! Did you see the comment by Gussie up above? I had a look on Youtube at an episode of Dog Borstal and it looked like more retrograde dominance stuff. So sad. Don't we humans ever learn?