Damn You Millan!

Little Evil Dog (LED) is now about four months old.  And still in the midst of a teething frenzy as her milk teeth are falling out.  Sometimes Camera Girl even bleeds from the bites of this insane little basset hound.  There has been some improvement.  Lately she only draws blood once a week rather than daily.  Everything is relative.

Today I noted that Camera Girl was watching the Dog Whisperer on Nat Geo.  It’s that Mexican guy Cesar Millan who trains dogs.  Of course, there is nothing more absurd than Camera Girl trying to train her dogs.  They completely dominate her and systematically ignore all her commands.  It would be accurate to say that they have trained her.

I tried to imagine her attempting to use Millan’s techniques but I know that she could never assert authority over the dogs.  It just completely clashes with her babying of these canines.  And yet with her children and grandchildren she has always been able to maintain good discipline.  I think it’s the fact that intellectually dogs are like permanent infants.  They never reach a point where they can be responsible for their misdeeds.  Training always has to be a matter of dominance.  And so, she forever treats them like babies.  Even if the animal outweighs her.

And so, the problem of Camera Girl’s bad dogs can never be fully solved.  I have in the past had to force obedience from some of the larger male dogs on my own just for safety’s sake but she will never be their boss.

But as I watched the episode that Camera Girl had on it occurred to me that a wife whisperer would be an interesting show.  If some guy developed a format where he had men come to him with wives who behaved poorly and he came up with a regimen for bringing them back in line.  And of course, it should be a humane program.  No shock collars or whips; nothing like that.  It could all be done using positive reinforcement.  Even a muzzle probably would be unnecessary, although I could see where it would make life better sometimes.

I’d guess it would work with treats and gifts used to encourage good behavior and verbal cues to point out bad behavior.  I started to think how I could work some of these things into my home life.  I could use small rewards like buying her a turtle or a lizard if she behaved herself.  But I realized that my house would probably overrun with pets within a few weeks.  And since there weren’t any other treats, I could provide or withhold, there wasn’t a way forward with my wife whisperer idea.  It was a dead end.

But I did watch how often food was the treat that Millan used to train his dogs.  How he used it to reinforce good behavior or withheld it to show displeasure.  And then some things came together in my mind.  Grocery patterns and other aspects of my life.  And I was aghast.  She has been using Millan’s program on me!  Tonight, we’re having a pork roast.  That only went on the menu after I performed the winter yard close-up yesterday.

To Serve Man, it’s a training book!