Not Your Average Cesar Salad

WARNING!!! WARNING!!! WARNING!!!!

This is not about bashing Cesar. I'm not analyzing his training methods or doing a comparative between his methods and Victoria Stilwell, or any other behavioral or training method.
This is about making choices about the dogs we have in our lives.
I've got some questions I'd like some input on that I think are thought provoking--none of them have to do with choosing an approach to dog training.
If you hate him so much you just can't keep your opinion to yourself, please go to one of the 800,000 sites, blogs, links, discussion threads, etc. that debate his techniques ad nauseum, vent until you feel better, then please come back here and join the discussion.I value your opinion on these questions and would love your input.

My hoped for discussion is about the owners, trainers and instructors of Weber Training Stable
(http://www.webertrainingstables.com/), Jim And Joy, and their dogs.

I suggest watching all of Part 1 and 2. If nothing else, here's some bits and pieces that I feel are relevant.

Part 1: Watch the father, Jim, talking to Cesar, starting at 2:30. Look at Cesar's reaction.I feel completely understands the father's desire to shoot the dog. I said understands, which does not necessarily mean condones. At 3:33 look at Cesar's WTF? reaction to the wife's (Joy) reaction to the situation.

At 4:30 you get a taste of the dogs in action and how Joy and Jim handle them. At 7:00 he evaluates the situation. (No mention made by Joy of Rotts behavior before Bulldog started showing aggression. Going after horses and other dogs is learned behavior).

At 9:09 Joy states the dog is like one of her children. At 9:20 she asks, would you get rid of one of your children to keep your husband happy?

Part 2: At 3:02 watch how the dog goes after the horse while wearing a muzzle.. At 4:22 I feel like Cesar is having another WTF? moment. "You have the dog in the back with the baby inside?"


Here are the questions that came to my mind.

1. Do you guys want me to hold my thoughts until after we discuss this? I'm giving my gut reactions to this situation, but I haven't truly thought this through yet. I promise to behave, as long as the comments are about the discussion and not Cesar's training methods.

2. Does the father have a valid point when he says he wants to destroy the dog?

I would have shot the dog after my child was hospitalized. If my husband, a blood relative or one of you had put my child in the hospital I'd be loading my 12 gauge.

3. Should this couple own these dogs?

These are not typical barn dogs. I feel that for this couple, or maybe it's just Joy, these are "Ego Dogs." They were not chosen for the jobs they are bred for, they were chosen for the status the owner felt they gave her.This is so unfair to the dogs. That alone tells me they don't have the knowledge to handle them.
 
4. What differences do you see in the behavior of the two dogs? The Rott seems to be a happy idiot and nothing more. The bulldog scares the crap out of me.

5. Does Joy's statement that the dog is like one of her children tell you she loves dogs, or she is a sociopathic control freak?
 She asks, would you get rid of one of your children to keep your husband happy? The fact that she sees the situation this way gives me chills. It has nothing to do with making her husband happy, it has everything to do with allowing her son to live with a dog who has grabbed him by the throat.
Let's give it to her, and pretend the bulldog is one of her kids.

6.  If one of your children attacked another of your children, once, so aggressively he was hospitalized, and another time put a knife to his throat, would you keep that child in the house?
I would remove the murderous little shit and place him in a psychiatric facility. Then I would go take some intensive parenting classes.

7. Would you take your horse to this facility for training, or let your children take lessons from this couple?

8. How do you feel about the dog and the child sharing the back seat of the car?
I wanted to call social services.
My dogs, Charlie and Brockle, have a love/hate relationship. Periodically, Charlie pushes Brockle too far, Brockle gets mad and bites Charlie. Although it's only one bite, he draws blood.
Twice, Brockle bit Charlie so severely he scalped him. I mean actually scalped him.
Both times they were together in the back seat of the car.
It became very clear, very fast, that the close confinement was creating enough stress to create a huge problem between my guys. Charlie was the loser both times.
He survived and Brockle now has a gate between him and Charlie when we're in the car.

9. Do you think the child is safe now?

10. If not, do you think any training method can make this situation safe?

Now I have a question about the show itself. NOT THE TRAINING METHODS!!!

In Cesar's early years he would tell people, honestly, how he read their situation.
He would tell them if he felt the dog was a danger, or if they didn't have the temperament to handle their dog.
With this new program, it seems to have gone out the window.
It appeared to me he was, well, horrified by the behavior of the bulldog. Excuse me, let me make that the behavior of the owners.
I saw unease, distaste, incredulity, fear (for the child) and frustration cross his face, yet he never said anything. In the old days, he would have offered to take the dog and then given Jim and Joy a mild mannered, gentle Pit bull they could handle. In a case like this, he would give them a severe lecture about always putting children before dogs. I've seen him do it more than once.
Now, nothing was said
Why do you think this is happening?

Okay. Go.

In all fairness, I just found this update.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/cesar-911/videos/case-file-pupdate-gunny/

Does this change your perspective?

I have to think about it a little.