Cesar Millan’s Positive Reinforcement Techniques

Whether you agree your disagree with Cesar Millan’s dog training techniques, one thing is clear –

Cesar Millan is a very charismatic man who communicates very well with people. 

He communicates well with his dog owner clients and he communicates well with his Dog Whisperer viewers. The result – he has experienced much greater success in terms of number of viewers compared to the other television dog trainers.

Calm and assertive is one of the most popular lessons in Cesar Millan’s The Dog Whisperer show, and one thing you will notice is that Cesar is always very calm when interacting with people. There were several episodes where he visited people who were not the most polite to him, but he responded with calmness, and decided to just leave instead of argue, verbally attack, or try to force his views onto others.

Is Cesar Millan assertive with his human clients and viewers?

In a way he is, because he speaks with confidence, acts with confidence, and communicates in a calm and easy to understand manner. He also comes from a position of authority because he has a very impressive resume.

It is interesting to note however that he achieves this assertiveness by being positive and by encouraging people. If the people are not willing to accept his method of training, he simply leaves.

Many people think that being positive, or leaving an argument is losing, but Cesar Millan shows us that this is not the case.

I am always very impressed with the calm restraint that Millan shows when sometimes faced with difficult clients. Cesar is rich and famous. In truth, he does not need to suffer any rude behavior; yet the worst that I have seen him do is walk away.

In fact, Cesar Millan only uses reward techniques (positive reinforcement, negative punishment) on the people he interacts with. He is often positive and very encouraging. He also uses experiences from a person’s daily life to get his messages across. He does not personally attack anyone, and I have not seen him make anyone cry.

This is in contrast to Brad Pattison’s show, In the Dog House, which features someone crying in almost every episode.

There is also a fair amount of arguing and people being generally unhappy with his aversive, and abrasive style of communication. For some reason, those responsible for the show seem to think that making people cry, and getting in people’s faces, are good ways to teach and show some kind of skill or competence.

The results, however, are clear.

Cesar Millan has won numerous awards, has a large and ever growing number of viewers, and has a large and successful line of dog products. Do a search on Amazon for Cesar Millan and you will get hundreds of hits.

Try doing a search for Brad Pattison and Victoria Stilwell in comparison …

well you see the difference.

Both Pattison and Stilwell use aversive techniques including scolding, ridicule, fear tactics, and sometimes much more on their human clients.

I think this is one of Cesar Millan’s most important lessons to us.