Brad Pattison is a well-known dog trainer in Canada. He has his own dog training television show, called At The End of My Leash which airs in Canada and Europe.
Brad Pattison’s show just started airing in the United States, under the name In The Doghouse, on Saturdays, at the Animal Planet.
Brad Pattison also runs a CET (Certified Educator Trainers) dog training program. Presumably, after attending one of these programs, you will get to put the CET stamp after your name. However, before enrolling in one of these classes, and fulfilling your lifelong dreams of becoming a CET, please watch this short video of Brad Pattison in action in one of his classes.
[Sadly, this last video has also gotten yanked from rutube.]
It is often difficult to find videos of Brad Pattison in true action because these videos keep getting yanked from their online sites. However, the fact that Pattison and gang feels the need to yank short ‘training’ class videos, says a lot about Pattison’s “training techniques”.
In the dog training arena, there is a fair amount of debate between the people who mostly support reward training and the people who mostly support aversive training.
Victoria Stilwell is a popular television dog trainer that uses reward training (It’s Me Or The Dog, which airs on Animal Planet) and Cesar Millan is a popular television dog trainer that has a greater emphasis on aversive training (The Dog Whisperer, which airs on the National Geographic Channel) .
So where does Brad Pattison fit in?
Bad Pattison seems to be a standard traditional dog trainer. He uses aversive dog training techniques and relies very heavily, almost exclusively, on leash jerks or leash corrections.
However, to differentiate himself from Cesar Millan, Brad Pattison further ups the aversive ante and not only applies physical aversive methods on the dogs, but also verbal aversive methods on the dog owners. This is in contrast to Victoria Stilwell who applies some aversive methods on the dog owners, and Cesar Millan who applies some aversive methods on the dogs.
Even the people who support aversive methods generally agree, that what was shown in the Brad Pattison video clip is not good ‘dog training‘. Anyone who trains dogs, owns dogs, or even just watches Cesar Millan occasionally, knows that the energy you use to interact with a dog is extremely important, and can greatly affect the dog’s behavior.
Performing leash jerks using angry or frustrated energy only teaches the dog one thing, and that is to blindly fear you. There will be little respect or trust involved. When angry, annoyed, or frustrated, your erratic behavior will only confuse the dog, and set back his learning process. It will also increase his stress levels, lower his quality of life, and weaken your human-canine bond.
In fact, such energy is also counter-productive for teaching humans.
Which teachers do you respect most? The ones who communicate with calm authority, or the ones who shout and act in an erratic fashion? The ones that positively encourage you or the ones that quickly lose their temper and publicly denigrate you?
Here is an eye-witness opinion of Brad Pattison’s dog training techniques –
I saw him first hand this past Sat., he was in Woodbridge and all I can say is this – “I don’t understand why anyone would follow his methods”. Someone once told me, “don’t judge a book by its cover”. So I had to see things for myself, and what a wake up call it was.
What he does to train dogs is not nice at all. In fact, he makes the dogs fear him. One even got away from him as it was tied to his leg. Now, that’s got to give you some insight or idea of what your dog is trying to say to you. Another dog got away from one of his CET trainers. Go figure, they don’t want to be abused or yanked all over the place.
Sorry, but this is not training at all. I have trained dogs for 5 years now and not one has tried to get away from me. They stay close to me and watch everything I do. I use positive methods without food just praise. …
~~[ Shadow – full comment can be found in the comments section below ]
I also caught the first episode of Brad Pattison’s In The Doghouse program and I must say that it was less than impressive.
On the positive side, there was no crazy, angry, frustrated leash jerking. Brad Pattison also briefly talked about the force of the leash correction and being careful not to over-correct the dog, which are both good points.
However, these brief interludes of semi-saneness were insufficient to combat the general negativity and lack of focus that characterized the rest of the show.
If there was to be a silver lining to this dark cloud, it is perhaps that more people will realize that aversive methods are not generally effective for teaching humans OR dogs.
As for Brad Pattison and his CET trainers, I will keep my dogs far, far away from them all. I will also keep myself safe and stay away from this particular cloud of nastiness.
** Special thanks for Calmassertiv for giving me the link to Brad Pattison’s video clip, and for alerting me to the airing for Brad Pattison’s show.
Another week, another two episodes of watching Pattison make his women clients cry and his dog clients cringe. The exercise where he has the children tie the leash around their waste and randomly change direction amongst a row of trees was particularly onerous, with the guy actually cheering the children on as the dogs got their faces pressed against the trees when the leashes got wrapped up in confusion. While he commands his clients to perform this domineering psychological abuse
with their dogs one saw that each time he arrived at the client’s house he was holding the leash in the normal way, in his hand, which is of course what he should have been teaching instead of the around-the-waste garbage. When he returned days later to chastise the children for no longer performing the exercise all I could think was good for the children. They know animal abuse when they see it.
One really appalling note not dog-related. The episode had a father who had been told he was going to die at any moment from an aortic aneurism, and the family’s whole life was dominated by the fear of this event. The people were told the situation was inoperable. I have a little experience with aortic aneurisms and seriously question the inoperability of this man’s condition. There are actually many ways to address this problem surgically, so I was trying to figure out why they haven’t sought out a second opinion, and then I realised: they live in CANADA, home of the infamous government-run health care shortage. This man needs to go to the U.S. and find a heart surgeon who does lots and lots of aortic aneurism surgeries and get his problem fixed before the Canadian government system neglects him to death.
The Pattison abuse video has been removed from the website where it had been posted for the world to see. The site seems to have wimped out. One can only wonder whether it was due to Pattison banging on them, or maybe Animal Planet. We’ll likely never know. :((
I loved it when the guy called Pattison’s behavior bul***it. The gimmick of kicking out the owners and rummaging thru their house is lame, although he certainly does find a lot of interesting stuff. When he dumps the interesting stuff in the sink he shows how different his karma is from that of Cesar Millan, the person whose show they flagrantly are trying to clone. In every episode so far Pattison has made the woman cry, then put his arm around them to ‘console’ them, an even more pathetic gimmick than that of the house search. Bad karma notwithstanding, however, in all fairness this episode did end up with the dogs coming when called and walking calmly on loose leashes, and the husband seemed to respect Pattison when it was all over. I have to wonder if the production people (director, camera/sound people, etc) somehow get involved in the process off camera, because as was pointed out above one really gets to see very little of Pattison’s instructing the people or the dogs. The alpha-dog and no-free-lunch mantras get mentioned and the rest just magically happens between filmings, a testament I think to the truth of the message more than to the talent of the messenger, but again, in this episode anyway, I have to grudginly give credit where credit is due. As grating as Pattison’s persona is, my interest in studying dog and human behavior will keep me tuning in, just like I tune in to Animal Planet’s other show, with Victoria Stillwell, if for no other reason than to reinforce the appreciation and respect I have for the straightforward techniques and interpersonal skills demonstrated by National Geographic’s short Mexican guy.
Hello Kayla and Alex,
I just watched that episode, as well as the one with the Malamute.
I agree with you both. His show focuses too much on fixing people relationships and not enough on the dogs. Those dogs really did not need much – just some training, routine, and exercise. Dogs really don’t come with a repertoire of human commands. I also got a bit irritated with the episode on the Malamute. The woman was going on about how her dog is such a bad dog because he was chewing on their house. And then she goes on to say … and if he doesn’t get walked every day he goes bad … or something like that. DOH!
I would like to lock her in the house every day with nothing to do and see what becomes of her.
On the good side, Brad Pattison did tell them to exercise their dogs and to be consistent.
On the unfortunate side, he blamed everything on giving the dogs toys, food, and using a prong collar. As you say Alex, that had little to do with the root of the issues. That is why that older gentleman told him he didn’t know what he was talking about.
He could have progressed with his program of exercising the dogs and socializing them, and not changed anything else, and the results would have been the same.
He also didn’t talk at all about timing and not rewarding at the right time which is what the older gentleman was calling him out on.
As far as I could tell, the two dog training techniques he showed were snapping his fingers and tying the leash to our waist. The snapping fingers thing was especially magical. Snap – and the dog suddenly reads our minds and does what we want – lol. Gotta get me some of that action.
I watched the In The Dog House episode with the two terriers and the older, super rich lady and her crabby husband. I don’t blame the husband too much, though, because Brad is very irritating the way he raids people’s houses and blames them for things he’s not sure of. As opposed to Cesar, who can tell just from what the people tell him and how the dogs act what the problem is, Brad blames it on treats and makes false accusations.
Brad even said that the reason the dogs wern’t coming when called was because they had too many treats! What kind of sense is that?
What is with his show, too? It really doesn’t show how he gets the dogs to behave, just what he tells the people.
I too watched “in the dog house” with Brad Pattison and found this show very very annoying. The episode had an older man who kicked Brad out of his house, due to the fact that this “dog trainer” does not know how to interact with people, much less dogs.
He is condesending, arrogant and quite frankly, doesnt know what he’s
doing or talking about. Jeez, get this guy off the air before someone comes along and listens to him!!
Will take Cesar and Victoria anyday.
I have the DW taped on my DVR, so I’ll have to watch it tonight. I’m going on vacation so I won’t be able to watch it.
Puppy Mills and backyard breeders, I think, should be illegal. They are only adding to the dog overpopulation, and they are only adding inexperienced breeders = no positive furthering of any breed. Backyard breeders are especially bad because they usually only know the “treat them right” theory to having a good dog, and so the puppies inherit that and thier mother’s instability.
Puppy mills arn’t illegal because no one cares. It’s just a money making scheme that creates nothing but hardship and suffering. Just because the puppies have papers, though, everyone assumes that they’re “pure” or “perfect” dogs; puppies from reputable breeders.
If you follow this link you can see part of the Cotton episode where Millan gets the dog out of its cage (poor dog) in the garage. There’s nothing wrong with this dog that a little ownership change wouldn’t fix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXPkSZ7gBTk
Regarding puppy mills, it seems to me that they’re just a corner case of the larger issue of animal abuse in general. Animal Cops shows all have shown hoarders, dog-fighters, breeders, etc, getting away with constant abuse of mass numbers of animals. They get away with it because judges sentence them, when charged at all, to some piddly time on probation and an inconsequential fine. The laws are there, but the judges don’t take it seriously.
I am looking forward to both of your takes on tonight’s New episode of Dog Whisperer, at 6/9 pm Pacific time.
Hey great article link Calmassertiv. I have said many times before – there should be stricter laws with regards to dog ownership. These people should not own any dogs – period. They are not willing to put in the work to train a dog, and then resort to medical procedures to gimp the dog without dealing with the root of the problem behaviors.
However, given that they already have the dog, and are not willing to train it, there are not many options left.
Dog training and dog trainers are only as good as the people they try to teach their methods to. If the people refuse to learn, then there is little that can be done and the ultimate victim is the dog.
I truly believe that more controls at the breeder level will help a lot. American Eskimos, for example, are a feisty breed, and should only be sold to owners who already have good experience with dogs or who are willing to listen to simple instructions, and put in the time and effort necessary.
I still do not understand why puppy mills are legal in all States … why? why? why?
Those people are idiotic monsters. They shouldn’t even be allowed to have a dog! That poor thing, after Cesar comes in and helps, the owners are too stupid to keep with it for even a day!
Did you see how the article tried to say that Millan was at fault for thier failure? Like he had failed, and not them. People are so stupid sometimes.
And I agree with you, calmassertiv, I would be happy to control the remotes for the other family members. 🙂 Or take the dog home with me. I could do more WITHOUT Cesar than they could with his help.