So today I will be talking about this episode and I will write my notes that I took. And also explain how to do some of this stuff he shows in this video.
First here is the video:
So Cesar Milan is in San Diego. And this husband and pregnant wife ( named Charlie and Shantel Limbo) needs help with their six month old German Shepherd named Malik.
Here are the problems they have with this dog:
1. Pulling on leash and wife scared that she will get pulled down to the ground one of these days while she is really pregnant.
2. Doesn't have any boundaries set for the dog. So the dog would be all over the owners or eat food that the owners have on their plates.
So Cesar met up with this couple at their house and discussed the problems with the dog.
So he was going to fix the food problem first. ( which is eating the food off the people's plates and getting in their faces)
So first you would want to get a plate full of food and put it on the ground. Then call the dog to you and have him smell the food so he would want to straight away eat it. But when he gets super close to the food like he's going to eat it, you say " Tshh!" and touch him on the side of the neck so he backs away a bit. Then when he tries again you do the same thing. It's going to probably take a long time but just be patient. And have calm, confidence and love while doing it. The dog will also bark in protest and try to paw at it. But remember to be patient. And after a bit, he will know that that's something he can't have and surrender to the food.
You can also try doing the same thing if he's trying to get into your face or something ( without the food of course).
So Cesar fixed that problem and now wanted to fix the dog pulling problem.
So Cesar and the couple went outside with the dog. And Cesar put on one of his training leash's and first walked the dog and showed the couple how to walk him. Then he gave the leash to the woman and she started to walk him. But the fear of the dog pulling her down came into her head and then the dog was getting ahead of her again. So Cesar told her not to worry and to have calm and confidence while walking the dog and always be ahead of the dog because if your not ahead of the dog, you are becoming the follower and not the leader. And the dog knows that he is the leader and not his owner and start pulling her around. So then she walked with calm and confidence and made sure that she was the leader and not the dog. And it was working!! She was so happy that she wasn't being pulled anymore and could walk her dog in peace.
So what did we learn? Well we learned that we shouldn't let the dog walk ahead of us and think that he's the leader. And when we walk with calm and confidence what do we get? Well the dog responds with a different energy. He reacts with a calm energy. So if our energy is excitement, the dog will be excited. And that's not what we want.
If our dog starts to bark in fear and whine at somebody, what would you do? Would you start to say " it's ok. " and start to give it pats and cuddle it? NO! You defiantly do not want to do that at all! It's like if you had a 8 year old child and he/she started to cry and whine at somebody because it's mad or something, would you give your child hugs and say it's ok when he/she is being naughty? You would give him/her discipline. And say that something we don't do around here. Same thing with a dog. If you had given the dog cuddles and love when he's being naughty your actually saying to your dog, " good boy for doing a bad thing!" And then the dog will realize if he keeps doing bad things he would be rewarded for it. And that's how you get bad behavior.