Home » Dog Training: Try A Whisper

Recently, my husband and I have stumbled on a television show that has entranced and enthralled us. Its a show called The Dog Whisperer on one of the cable channels, that my dog Copper is wishing we never got a glimpse of. We humans love it, and I have to say we have spent more than two Friday evenings happily watching it, instead of being out somewhere getting our groove on. (We dont have any groove. We lost it. So were just going to whisper our poor, unsuspecting dog instead.)

The Dog Whisperer stars a man named Cesar Millan who somehow hypnotizes dogs and makes them docile, cooperative animals in a matter of seconds, simply by making a sound at them, and the sound is Tssst . That's it. He goes Tssst and the dog, no matter what it is doing, lies down and appears to be waiting for it's own death. Then Cesar simply looks at the camera and says, in his Spanish accent, "Now, remember, get your dog into a calm, submissive state, and don't forget that you are the pack leader." The first time he said this, I looked over at my husband doubtfully; we were slumped way down on the couch with a bag of Tostitos between us, exhausted from the week - we didn't really seem like pack leaders. But hey, maybe we were. "Come on, let's try this," my husband said. "Where's the dog?"

At that moment, our hound dog Copper was upstairs quietly chewing on every Webkin our eight year old owns, and didn't want to be disturbed while he was doing this. However, he gamely came to the top of the stairs, Webkin stuffing all over his mouth, and we said, in our best pack-leader voices, "Copper, come here now!" Copper cocked his head at us, and then disappeared. We looked at each other. "I wonder what's on HBO," I began hesitantly, but my husband said, "No, we can do this!" He looked up the stairs again. "Copper, come here now! Tssst! "(He just kind of threw that in, in case it was, like, magic, and we had just never heard of it.) Copper did in fact appear, probably thinking that Tssst is the sound of some kind of new food being opened. We cleaned the Webkin off his jowls, and began training in earnest.

This was all new to us, both dog and humans. Our pre-whisperer training with Copper consists of basically two things: we yank on his leash when he lunges ahead of us on a walk, and my husband, at least twice a day, asks Copper, "Are you serious?" He's always saying that to the dog, like when he goes through the trash,  or chews up stuffed animals, or barks at the mailman - my husband says, "Are you serious, Copper?" This is a funny question to ask a dog, because they are pretty much always serious; dogs are not known to be big jokesters.

I became so enthused with Cesar's approach that I visited his website. The website states: "Cesar Millan teaches that, in order to properly fulfill both our dogs and ourselves, we need to become our canine's calm, assertive pack leaders. A dog that doesn't trust it's human to be a good pack leader becomes unbalanced and often exhibits unwanted or anti-social behaviors." I thought about this for a minute. Couldnt this be applied to... all of life? I was going to become the pack leader of my own life! Someone called the day after this decision, asking me to volunteer for yet another job in the community. Tssst! I said curtly, into the phone, and hung up. Next, I was at my doctor's office, where they warned me again about foods containing cholesterol; namely all the foods that make it worth getting up in the morning. Tssst! I said to the nurse, also employing a little swift pointing, like Cesar does. I am the pack leader here! Enough!

So, while I am the pack leader of my own life, I seem to be losing friends and gaining some very bemused looks. Copper, in the meantime, is steadily progressing, although because he is a hunting hound (like the hound at the beginning of the Beverly Hillbillies) I assume he thinks with an accent, and here is what he is thinking, as he stares up at me: "There she goes again, a-makin' that hissin' noise. That's sure-nuff cute. I wish I knew what in tarnation that meant...now, where those webkins at?"

 

 

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