It would take a great amount of tongue biting for sure. I haven't watched his show for a while. I did happen to catch the one with the dalmation and the clicker, wish it would have gone into a little more detail, but I was hoping that this was a new direction that the show was taking. I haven't seen one since, so I don't know if it has or not.
[B]I didn't see that episode, I'll have to keep an eye out for it. [/B]
His show isn't perfect, but I think he has a good base. He's likeable, he's got an audience. he does preach, calm assertiveness, which I like, he preaches consistency, which is a must, he preaches exercise, which is foreign to most people, let alone doing it for their dogs, and he preaches that dogs are dogs, not people. Some new introductions, some other professionals willing to bite their tounges on some things, at first, could really start to change people's thinking.
I just don't see anyone biting their tongues, having seen all of them at seminars and seeing how dynamic and well versed they are...just can't see it happening. I'm sure he'll get some lesser known educated people coming on, I'd like to see that myself, but someone like Donaldson, Dunbar, McConnell...they'd eat him alive or look like fools going along with him.
Getting people to change from this dominating style of training isn't going to happen quickly. Everything in the history of the world has been trained that way by humans forever. Its in our nature. Someone had a good set of analogies on another board, that I can't remember all of, but they said if we could have found a way to put a prong collar or ecollar on dolphins we might not even know what a clicker is today. It's kind of true, to an extent.
I see what you're saying but from my experience he really is in the minority. Aside from missing the last Clicker conference, I've attended just about every top seminar in Canada and the States for the last several years and I can honestly say that the shift is obvious and enormous. Even just take the last seminar here with Emma Parsons. Sam and I were both in attendance and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone there who thought that Cesars methods were anything but ancient and unnecessary. Wouldn't you agree Sam? Even I still believe dominance is important, but I do it in a different way. Not yanking, and pushing and that stuff, but i've seen it too many times in my own dogs, and when working with others, that a more "dominant" personality, will always have better control of the dogs. If I"m feeling ho hum, my dogs don't listen as well. Just thru body posture and my inner feeling can change my dogs in an instant, and other dogs that are unruly every day of their lives aren't immune, I can grab their leash, no screaming, no real eye contact, no yelling, no jerking, and immediatly become a different dog. So there is something to this "dominance" thing, that's just how I see it. anyway, i'm going off in a different direction I think.