On Sunday January 15, 2012, Cesar Millan, known as television’s “The Dog Whisperer” made a stop on his national tour to perform at the Rochester Auditorium Theatre in Rochester, NY. The show is billed on his website as providing “dog training tips and advice,” and was described on the Theatre’s website as sharing “secrets on how to transform dogs and their owners” in a live, multimedia event.

Not everyone in Rochester was eager to hear what secrets he was touting in his show. A protest was organized by local dog trainer Ada Simms, structured to distribute information about positive reinforcement training methods. Simms put together a three-page flyer containing part of the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior’s statement regarding dominance and punishment, as well as a list of dog trainers in Western NY who are positive reinforcement trainers. A total of eight people braved single-digit temperatures to hand out the flyer to people entering the Theatre.

According to one participant, most people took the flyer when offered, some handed it back, and a few verbally tried to engage the protesters. Many who took the flyer without reading it were seen reading it inside the Theatre while waiting for the show to begin. One man told Simms about a specific problem he was having with his dog and asked for advice.

An attendee who is an aspiring animal trainer had this to say about the show:

“He did more story telling than actual teaching, but the teaching he did involved[stating that] many people [give] their animals affection, affection, affection, instead of [Millan's formula] of ‘exercise, discipline and affection.’ Being calm and having appropriate energy was the main thing he talked about throughout the whole night.

Many positive reinforcement dog trainers agree with Millan’s advice that increasing the amount of daily exercise for your dogs is part of a multi-step solution to working through behavioral problems. However, these trainers disagree with many of the techniques that Millan uses in his show, including flooding, shock collars, and kicking dogs (know to Millan fans as “tapping” them).

The goal of the protest was simply to educate the public on the problems with ‘dominance theory’ and to let them know that there alternatives to the methods used by Millan and his followers.

To learn more about the problems associated with confrontational training methods, take a look at the study by the University of Pennsylvania here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090217141540.htm

For information training methods and finding a qualified dog trainer, look here: http://apdt.com/petowners/choose/default.aspx