Cesar Millan dog whisperer lawsuit
Cesar Millan, from National Geographic’s Dog Whisperer, was sued by Flody Suarez, producer of Book of Daniel and 8 Simple Rules and his own show, Dog Whisperer. According to the lawsuit, Suarez claims his Labrador was injured after having been left at Millan’s “Dog Psychology Center” dog training facility.
Suarez stated that several hours after dropping his dog off at the facility, he received a phone call from a worker who said the dog had been taken to a veterinarian. Suarez arrived at the veterinary clinic to find that his dog was wearing an oxygen tent while gasping for air, after having been bleeding from his mouth and nose. The cause of his injury, according to Suarez, is from being forced to run on a treadmill, exhausted, while attached with a Choke chains.
Viewer’s of the Cesar Millan Dog Whisperer show have seen images of dogs running on treadmills, being jerked back in an aggressive fashion while on walks, and other training methods imposed by and preached by Millan. Critics of Millan claim that his methods are impractical and teach fear rather than corrected behaviour.
“Millan’s methods are based on flooding and punishment,” said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, Professor and Head of Section of Animal Behaviour and Director of the Behaviour Clinic at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.
“My concerns are based on his inappropriateness, inaccurate statements, and complete fabrications of explanations for dog behaviour,” said Dr. Suzanne Hetts, Certified Applied Animal Behaviourist and Co-owner of Animal Behavior Associates Inc., Littleton, CO. “His ideas, especially those about “dominance”, are completely disconnected from the sciences of ethology and animal learning, which are our best hope for understanding and training our dogs and meeting their behavioural needs.”
Jean Donaldson, The San Francisco SPCA Director of the Academy for Dog Trainers, remarked: “practices such as physically confronting aggressive dogs and using of choke collars for fearful dogs are outrageous by even the most diluted dog training standards.” Donaldson continued to say, “a profession that has been making steady gains in its professionalism, technical sophistication and humane standards has been greatly set back.”
Read the full article on Legal Paramount, here.
You can listen to an interview with Jean Donaldson discussing with me the subject of aggression and dominance on episode 2 of my podcast series The Canine Connection, here.
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