Cesar Millan has a reputation with some people as being too old school hard ass on the dogs he deals with but for such a traditionally minded trainer/behaviourist/whisperer or whatever you want to call him, he sure's got a metaphysical side to him that is weirdly new age.
It all sounds good, grasshopper, though I'm not sure I quite get what he's talking about, but whatever. He's pitching rescue dogs over pet store puppy mill dogs so in my books that's pretty decent.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
There is a certain class of folks who seem to think that if a person so much as wishes his dog would behave differently - he is abusing it.
As the old saying goes "the only thing two dog trainers will agree on is that a third on is wrong". I think CM does some brilliant things - and I think he does dogs and dog owners a disservice in others.
It's all a shade of grey.
Too true.
I'm not sure all he's talking about either, but it sure sounds good and I guess that's what counts any more.
I'm going to guess that he's getting at the notion that people who buy dogs from pet stores think of their dogs as commodities. Because they are. Their dogs aren't someone they chose to share their life with, but a thing they've purchased, often based on shallow standards like appearance, stereotyped notions about breed, and perceptions about how the dog might reflect on their social status. Of course, correlation isn't causation. It's not as though pet stores invented the notion of dogs as status objects.
That said, it also sounds like he's implying that mutts are ugly, which is a little bit of a beef I have lately. I've noticed, since I got a stunningly beautiful shelter mutt, that lot of people are surprised that she's a mutt, and that I got her at our overcrowded municipal shelter. They seem to think that shelter dogs are all ugly, scruffy, generally sub-par castoffs.
As such, I no longer think it's quite as hilarious to call the shelter the Used Dog Store.
Ha, ha, that's good: "Used Dog Store". That's funny.
No, er, wait ...
Post a Comment