Cesar Millan vs. Victoria Stilwell?

Question

Both are very experienced with dog behavior/psychology.

You can easily tell that they have pretty different styles of training/rehabilitating dogs.

Cesar Millan - rehabilitates dogs, I personally think that he works more towards being a "packleader" to rehabilitate your dog. In other words, his style pushes more towards training dogs mentally, other than a few physical-related ways of dog training

Victoria Stilwell - trains dogs, I personally think she works more towards using positive ways of training your dog. Her style pushes more towards both mental and physical training, although her physical styles of training seems to be the main source.

Anyways, I love both of the experts, but if I were to choose which one I liked more, I'd choose Victoria Stilwell.

I love how she always tries to use positive ways of training dogs. To me, Cesar Millan is great, but it seems like he uses negative ways of training dogs more than positive, although I do understand why he does what he does.

Overall, to me, Victoria Stilwell trains dogs as a human, while Cesar Millan rehabilitates dogs as a dog/packleader.

I'd love to hear your opinion! And an explanation of why would be nice as well :)

Answer 1

I prefer cesar.  The reason is because a dogs life style is not like ours.

Dogs are part of a pack, even if there is only one dog per family.  They see us as leaders or they think they are.  I think cesars way of teaching may seem harsh to some, cause most people just want to baby their pets, but when a dogs knows whos boss, they really do feel more relaxed and are not aggressive either.  They becoming more

trusting and when I watch his show, I often get a kick out of how little some people know about dogs.  We all love our pets, but I think he teaches us better ways of training them.  He teaches people to think like the dog and that's really the only way we can relate to our pets.

But I also think your question was great.

Answer 2

Victoria.

In my opinion, Cesar uses fear to control the dogs. And any aggressive one I met only got worse with punishment. Kindness takes longer, but it produces better results.  

Answer 3

i think cesar is better, he hasnt failed once.

Answer 4

I don't think you can really compare them as Victoria Stilwell is a trainer and Cesar Millan is not.  and he does not claim to be, he is a dog psychologist.  

They do have some similarities in that they both use energy to establish themselves as leader.  

I will choose Victoria. She uses techniques that you can use at home.  Safety first. and the happiness of the dog.  

Cesar uses techniques that only a professional should use.  He even has been bitten during the show.  His show does have a disclaimer not to try this at home.  But you know that people will.  And if they have a hard dog they will get bitten.

Answer 5

I like Cesar because he knows how a dog thinks,their nature.People  think their dogs think like a person,but they are dogs and think like a dog.That's what makes them so wonderful.Cesar appreciates dogs for the truly wonderful creature they are.He tries to help people understand their nature.

Answer 6

I perfer ceaser because he makes more sense to me and you are right he works more in to the mental side of dogs

Answer 7

i would go with Cesar.

Answer 8

I love Cesar!!! I think he really understands dogs and how their minds work. I have seen him tame the meanest dogs on his show.  He uses the same techniques the dogs use on each other. He is a translator between man and dog and I think he is great. Everything he does seems to work instantly or with in a few minutes. I don't think Cesar is negative with the dogs just stern.  

Vitoria isn't bad either I just haven't watched her as much as I watched Cesar.

Answer 9

Victoria Stillwell.  Who actually does quite a few "pack leader" things, retrains the people, and treats the dog like a dog... but doesn't get physical, it's all mental and behavioral methods.  Also... she "rehabilitates" dogs as much as he does.  Also, Millan has no training and his methods have been shown to cause behavioral problems not to mention if done wrong can seriously hurt the dog and human.  

Add:  No, he is not a dog psychologist.  Psychology, as a science, follows closer to what she does.  What he does is old fashioned choke-chain dominance based methods.  It's not psychology and it doesn't use natural dog behavior or the science that has developed around that (dog behaviorists...) but completely ignores it.  The only reason he uses "psychologist" is it makes him sound more professional and because if he said behaviorist he'd have to be certified.  There are no "dog psychologists"... it's a made up title to make up for the fact he has no credentials.

Add: I agree to a point.  All trainers tend to have a bit of a behaviorist in them, and Millan has a natural talent for reading dog behavior, but he misreads so often that it's just disheartening for folks like myself who have worked very hard to learn dog behavior and use it on dogs.  Dog psychology, really, when you look at what psychology is, is dog behavior, which is why I went into this field.  It's a science, it's been around a while.  His methods are based mostly on Barbara Woodhouse, coupled with outdated methods of alpha rolling and dominance pack theories... which is not actual dog behavior but mostly made up human theories that have been proven to cause damage behaviorally.  

Amichien (I think I spelled that right...) bonding is the "eating before the dogs do" and a great explanation of it can be found in Jan Fanell's book "The Dog Listener."  It uses natural dog pack behaviors to bond dogs to you and to give them trust in you as a leader.

I'm pretty... strong about my opinion of him.  I've got too much experience.  The good things I like about him is his pro-pit bull stance (though he still says they need to have a hard hand...), his promotion of exercise (though he pushes a little too hard on that... it's not a necessity and I've seen dogs abandoned because the people couldn't walk the dog like he said...) and his position that it's the owner's fault and training must be done.

Answer 10

Haha..

Good Question.

I live a few blocks away from Cesar Millan.

Truth is i am a dye hard Victoria Stilwell fan,

I think she focuses on training the owner to make it better for them and the dogs.

rather then just trying to rehabilitate the dog.

so say you rehabilitate the dog,

but the main problem is the owner.

so you got the dog well behaved.

but as soon as you leave the owner is going to do exaclty what it has been doing.

witch causes the dog to misbehave.

Its not that i don't like him he is cool i have seen him playing with his dogs and he is a pretty cool guy.

Oh did you see the one episode where he rehabilitated the dog. but after he left the dog when back to its old ways and had to be put down.

I thought he said "no dogs is to much for him"???

I guess not.

and he constantly gets bite and attacked.

out of those 10 years Victoria has been training dogs she has never been bite once???

weird huh?

long story short VICTORIA RULES!

Answer 11

I prefer Victoria Stilwell, I LOVE her show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 12

Cesar Millan  does the rehabilitation of abused and hard to handle dogs. I love his show, and his staff really helped me with my Mom and Dads HOLY TERROR Jack Russell. I recently watched an episode of Victoria Stilwell, and a lady had let her dog sleep with her ever since she got him, and now she wanted a life for herself since she had been divorced for three years. Any way, Victoria tole her to put up a fenced in area in the bedroom for the dog to sleep in so she woudn;t be so far away from this owner, Cesar wouls say"NO WAY" Dog is not the boss, we are. I love his show, don't you?

Answer 13

i would go hands down Victoria Stilwell. Victoria Stilwell has also never failed i watch it;s Me Or The Dog All The Time. With Vitoria's Methoded she trains the owners not just the dog.and with her method she leaves teh owner 4 2 weeks to see their progress and lets them also try training the dog(s)