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In the final post in this series (delayed I know), I’ll offer some thoughts on just one or two of the issues that most concern me about how some trainers and behaviour professionals approach “aggression” cases in dogs. This I’ll contrast with more established and informed methods of B-Mod (behaviour modification), as well as some of the advantages of more recent advances, incorporating an assessment of emotion and mood and its relationship to behaviour. I do this for a simple reason – since I first started working in this field I have been consistently alarmed at just how many ‘trainers’, ‘consultants’ and ‘behaviourists’ continue to ply a very lucrative trade based on claims of knowledge and expertise, or near-miraculous instinctive skills, they appear not to possess.
‘Dog Whispering’ is largely a media contrivance. It alludes to the “Whisperer” moniker made famous by Monty Roberts in his work with horses, and directly appropriates the title of Paul Owens’ 1999 book “The Dog Whisperer” – a very different kettle of fish entirely, promoting as it did an entirely positive reinforcement approach to training dogs.
The entire television package is carefully crafted – its shrewd juxtaposition of a telegenic matinee idol over an overtly macho rendering of how to interpret and alter undesirable dog behaviour – and it has proved to be a winning formula. Add a little New Age mysticism, and some rehashed ‘energy theory’, and it’s a marketer’s dream. The end-product is a bizarre concoction of fact and fantasy – sort of Marlboro Man meets Dr Doolittle meets Deepak Chopra – and from the moment the programme first aired, it seemed to fire the popular imagination.
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