I have been around dogs all my life 52 years. I cannot believe how LITTLE I knew about them, before looking at them through Cesar's viewpoint! I also understand the need for safety and the liability concerns in this "litigation happy" society. Still, there are many of us who do not or have not had, access to the kind of professionals who agree with, understand or follow Cesar's ways, and even though sometimes not have as great a skill to handle the situation correctly, will not let a dog be killed or abandoned, if there is no one else to help or step in!

When Cesar's show started, I was in such a postion with a dog which would be put down because of his "red-zone reactions" if I didnt step in. All I did was follow what I had seen Cesar do - let the dog tire himself out, then corner him in a space until he shifted energy. The one mistake I did do was to not exercise my house dogs BEFORE bringing this rescue into the space with the other dogs.

I only had my other male for a few more months before he died of a fast cancer, but I didnt have enough understanding how to fix my mistake of not introducing the two dogs correctly! This mistake took a long time to overcome and change the behavior of dogs who had been humanized for over 10 years in my house!

My last dog "BC" (Before Cesar) has since died and every dog since then the "red-zone rescue" has been Cesarized from the very first moments of our relationship.

What these has caused me to realize is:

1) how very lucky I have been with the many, many dogs who have been in my 52 year life, being naturallly submissive or realitively problem free.
2) how much easier it is if dogs are brought up with ruthless attention to following the Cesar Model from the very first moments, BUT if not, still, with CONSISTENT attention to OUR behaviors in these relationships with these tips and techniques, change can occur, even with dogs who have years of patterns to undo.

Remember that Cesar has commented that if a dog took years to get a certain way, change could take a long time! I think he meant ~ to become permanent, because what I have seen, is that the intial changes can happen quickly, but when we are inconsistent or when unforeseen triggers happen, the dog can (and does) regress until we take back control of him and the environment. Sure am looking forward to getting ideas on how to "re-introduce dogs this is going to be a fabulous episode for foster homes and rescue groups to fix problems in house!

Also, three years later, I HAVE now found a professional who understands, supports and works with Cesar's ways that I can turn to not only for assistance beyond my knowledge or skills, but also provide an outside assessment of MY interactions and decsions with the problem dogs I now work with!

I have two dogs that seem to get along fine. I realize there is rivalry between the both. The larger younger dog will always try to take advantage of the smaller older dog when she gets the chance and on occasion has grabbed him by the mouth when I am not around. I have witnessed it once and my sons have witnessed it once. Can you direct me to any of your shows listed here where I might be able to get some help.

Recently we introduced an 21 month old Golden Retriever into our pack. We have two female Goldens 10 years and 8 years respectively. They are not getting along well, and I see the male wanting to play, but he is really too rough with them. What would you suggest to calm his playful behavior? We have had one nip from the male with a tiny bit of blood the day we got him and now have to watch carefully to see there is no more upset. This new dog has had very little training but is respectful of humans and has a soft mouth. Eva

Hi!! I have 3 pit bulls. Originally Ihad the moma dog..I breed her and ended up keeping 1 male puppy..he then got hold of the moma dog and got her pregnant. ok I was in my bedroom with the puppy(3mos)that they had together. the moma dog and my male dog had never been aggressive towards each other & were in the living room and all of a sudden they were brawling . I mean blood everywhere. to this day i havemt been able to put them arounf each other but the puppy and the male dog get along fine..i need help b/c i'm not getting rid of any of them..it's just aggragvating that i ahve to take turns when letting them outside or in the house...anyone with suggestions please please email me Moderator's Note: Email address deleted. Please do not post personal information, such as email addresses, to the blog. Thank you! thanks jennifer

I wrote several months ago, asking for any kind of help from you on these terror dog in my home. My husband cant believe it either. He wants to take it to the pound and drop it off, Gator had been attacked 1 year by a chocolate lab.The lab picked him up by his neck and ran off with him, in his mouth, shaking him, throwing him down and rolling on to of him. We had taken him to the vet, and he almost died. He has had 3 surgeries since theat dog attack. His diaprahm was not attached and had muscle torn and shredded.I could tell you more about that but we would be here all day. You can walk him,groom him, touch his paws to cut nails, we are very scared of bath's. The is the Devil's Dog,I hat to say that, but you should the cuts and scprapes from his teeth on all our skin, and the black eye he gave my 5 year old.
My pittbull is by baby, he looks just like your dod Big Daddy.I would to hear from you to help with this problem. If I had the money I would fly you in myself, and rent a motel coe you to stay at. I dont know what else to do.Please Help.SEEKING HELP IN WESTMINSTER ,SOUTH CAROLINA ...Please help us, your our only help left, we cant take much more of this.HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Caesar, I have a 6 year old female chihuahua mix who is very sweet. I now want to get another dog to add to the family. Would I be better off getting a male or female or does that matter? Thanks so much and love your show!!

I love your show and am currently reading your book. About a year ago my daughter rescued a male choc. lab mix (approx. 3 years old) from a vet that was fixing to put it down because it did not have a home. Over the past couple of months he has gotten really clinging and cries all the time when I get my shoes on and have to leave the house. He is not alone, I have another full blooded male choc. lab and two smaller male dogs. He gets along wonderfully with the other dogs, however, he just seems really insecure. He gets alot of love and attention as well as the other dogs. He won't go outside if he knows I am leaving. I spend alot of time with the dogs, as I am unemployed at the time. I know he has gotten really attached to me and won't let me out of his site. Any suggestions on what I can do with "the crybaby" of the family? I love him so much, but he tends to get on people's nerves with the crying.

My husband and I had just started watching Cesar when we lost our 8 yr. old German Shepherd dog. Within a month, he got a 10 wk. old G.S. puppy. We are fortunate that he can take her with him to work every day so she gets a lot of training. We have applied all of Cesar's principles and this now 16 wk. old puppy is amazing. She follows us, no matter what, comes when called, sits, stays, lays down and automatically sits down at the door to wait on us to enter or exit. All of this without a leash. She watches us and listens to us.
We are in a service business and are regularly entering our customers yards. We have also used his advice in dealing with dogs who want to be aggressive towards us. The owners are completely baffled over their dog's New behavior around us. We hear a lot of "How did you get him to do that?" The beauty of of it is, is that it is really so simple. Thank you, Cesar.

Cesar, My daughter (Hope) and I love you. You are fantastic with all those dogs. We have 2 little yappers (Chihuahuas).Sure wish you could shut them up. They bark at neighbors when they go in and out of their homes.They bark at the wind. They belong to my grandsons but my daughter and I are the ones that try to control them...HA.

Cesar I desperately need your help. I have a 2 1/2 year old blue doberman pincher. For the first year in a half he was the sweetest dog. However, since then he has been showing agreesion over food, toys, and other things. He has biten my dad and had to be quartined for ten days. They told me to have him fixed and that would help take some of the agression out of him. This was in early september since then he has had two episodes of agreesion toward my other dog which is a 6 month old german shepard. I would greatly appreciate it if you could possibly come and give me your opinion of him. I love this dog like he a child of mine, but my father has told me if I don't get im under control he will have to find him another home. Or possibly have to be put down. Although I feel in my heart that he's not a dangerous dog, but I would like to get another opinion. My daughter and I live with my mother which is why I am concerned. So, if you could e-mail me back with some suggestions or tips that would be great. Although if you could just come and evaluate him yourself it would put my whole family at ease. Thank you,

Julie

Ceaser you are great! I just wanted to let you know my story. I am 25 and a newlywed 3 months after the wedding I had to have an emergeny hysterectomy we have no children and devestated both my husband and I. We prayed and prayed for God to heal our wounds and help us continue on, our house felt terminally empty. To make a long story short, one evening I sent my husband to his parents to get some stuff and he was gone for longer than I expected when he arrived home I could hear him talking so I went in the living room and there sat the most emaciated red nosed pitbull I had ever seen! My husband been aproached by his parents next door nieghbor and asked if he wanted the dog because the man was about to shoot the dog because he could not afford to feed him. My husband brought him home and there he was sitting in my floor, I was terrified I thought "A pitbull those dogs kill people and now here one was" I believed all the bad rep and all the rumors I had ever heard about this misunderstood breed. I took him to the vet and I am happy to report he has proven me wrong we have got his weight back to normal and he is now healthy, but the point of this letter is to let you know this animal has rehabilitated us he has brought us joy love and affection. He is behaved, house trained andf a loyal companion. When I prayed for God to help us I had no ideaa that he was dsending me a Pitbull. Bruno is my gift from God with fur. We watch your show all the time to make sure we are training him correctly. I am in love with the breed and look forward to having many more pitbulls around but how do we bring a new one in without having agressive issues? Julia Escalante

Cesar,

We are always watching your show and trying to figure out our dog.

Our dog is a male Pomeranian named "Bear" and you guessed it. He has a barking problem. He barks at everything that moves during the daytime hours. At night, he's a saint. He comes to bed and sleeps and when he has to go, he get's up and does his busness and comes back to bed. When I get up at 3:00am to go to work, he get up and sets with me and doesn't yap at all.

When I leave for work, I tell him to go back to bed and he does.
When my wife get up the barking starts and doesn't stop until I go back to bed in the evening.

The only problem this dog has is the barking. We leave and go on 2 or 3 day trips and leave him at home and he stresses out.

He's very happy to see us when we get home. He doesn't tear anything up either. He's a good dog and companion other than the constent barking.

How can we cure this?

Hi,I am a pet sitter and I have a client who wants me to take care of her chihuahua in my home for 10 days.This is the first time to consider taking a dog to my home,as I have 2 dogs of my own.The dogs all met today,and everything seemed to go well at the start of the visit.Then after a while the chihuahua got a little upset at my Jack Russell Terrier and then when the owner picked her up the dog didn't like me anymore.I feel she may have only been protective of her owner.Should I still consider taking care of the dog,and if so what procedures do you recommend taking in reference to bad behavior.I would really appreciate your knowledge and thoughts.Please reply quickly if possible as I may be sitting her in the next 2 days.

ITHINK THATNATIONAL GEOGRAPHICS NEEDS TOO HAVE MORE INFO ON PEKAPOOS.

I usually never turn to anyone for help with my dogs because they have been really easy to maintain, unfortunately and all the sudden a bomb has been dropped on me. I have two boxers, (Bruno)male 7 yrs (Nakita)female 9yrs, they have been together since puppies and have never had a problem and have been the best of friends. Now in the past week Bruno has been attacking Nakita especially when there is food around, he gets a really pi**ed off black stare and gets all stiff and shakey. Nakita has always growled at him or snapped him away and has always been a little hog around food but he always just brushed her off and really paid no attention to her. Now he is flying off the handle. I initially thought something could be wrong so a trip to vet took place where no physical and blood tests came back good showing normal thyroid levels. My girlfriend is ready to give him up. She is stressed and really upset everyday. I'm thinking maybe a brain tumor but really have no idea. My girlfriend doesn't even feel safe and is not comfortable around him. Any suggestions would surely be appreciated

Hi Cesar,
My name is Tiffaney and I am a fan of your show. I was hoping you could help me tame my 5 yr old german shepard, named Shelby.
I love her to death, but I have to keep her chained up all the time or she will run down to my neighbors house. She will also run to the creek and come back soaking wet. Please help me be able to just let her run freely, but not everywhere else just in our yard. I'd really appreciate it if you would reply to this comment or email me.
Thanks,
Tiffaney

Please help! My wife and I are both 56 yrs old and have always had a small house dog! After our 18 yr old maltese died we brought home a female shi-tzu puppy.8 yrs later we rescued a shi-tzu male,nutored, of the same age.We discovered that they were siblings.cosmo the male is very happy and settled in well however buttons the female is always afraid of him especialy when he coughs or even sneezes!Buttons wants to spend most of her time away from cosmo,usually in the bed room!She will run and hide if she hears him cough even in the other room!Buttons lost an eye to glocoma when she was 6mths old but was happy and playfull!I walk my dogs everyday if possible,it hasn't helped the situation at all.I love both my dogs but worry about buttons because she's very unhappy now and this is causing us also a great deal of stress. Please help. PS. Love your show.

Hi Cesar,

I am a dog lover. My husband already had 2 14 year old dogs when we got married (1/2 Lab 1/2 Great Dane, Winston and full blooded Beagle, Nube) . They both evacuated with us during hurricane Katrina. 2 weeks after hurricane Katrina I adopted Katie "Lucky Dog" a 1/2 beagle 1/2 jack Russell (3-4 months old that had been left behind to take care of herself during the storm) that was being kicked down the street by some guy in Gulfport, MS where my mom and dad lost their home. She was so afraid but now she's adorable and perfect though if she's sees a squirrel she may run forever, and she doesn't seem to love kids. She tries to bite their shorts...My 14 Lab passed away shortly after the storm from traumatization, we believe. A couple of months later came Cole "Bear"...My husband was driving back by some warehouses where there use to be packs of dogs that would roam around before the storm but after not many were left. Cole was only about 3 months old when my husband thought he ran over him, he got out to bring him to the vet but couldn't find him. That dog, 1/2 Lab 1/2 Pit bull ,was smart enough to circle the car and jump in my husband's driver's seat. He's a great dog and very protective, but extremely territorial, jumps on everyone who walks in the house and wants to attack other dogs, especially male dogs and especially when my other dogs are outside with him. I only feel comfortable walking him with a choke collar and still he manages to pull me down the street. Then, there are other times where you see my other 3 dogs biting on his face while he whines and he looks like the most helpless dog in the world...There is also Lucy "Lu" (1/2 Rat Terrier 1/2 mini Collie) who I couldn't resist...A little 3 month old puppy chained up in someone's backyard with no attention on a daily and nightly basis (so I was told). So, I took her. She is adorable, extremely quirky and stand offish but not...She's a really sweet dog but when I walk her sometimes she'll play with other dogs that pass by but sometimes she'll bite at them. Then there's Rudy, my little terror. I just found him near the woods in Mississippi. He was only about 3 months old, 1/2 Rat Terrier, 1/2 Jack Russel and got along my mom and dad's dogs great. So, I brought him home too. (Yes, I now drive with blinders on...) He is very cute but very difficult to potty train. Also, he is extremely territorial so you probably know what happened between him and Cole. It wasn't pretty! They get along much better now but they fight just about every day over my attention. It's mostly Rudy (the little one). If he is near me and Cole comes near me he attacks Cole and they start fighting. And, if their all eating and Rudy is not ready to have Cole come and join them, he growls. I'm afraid that one day Cole is going to get fed up with him and shred him to pieces. Nube, the 14 year old Beagle has always been an outside dog with a routine. So, in order not to interrupt his routine, all of the 4 adopted/ found dogs are inside. We rebuilt our home, put down the most beautiful distressed hard wood floors...Yes, they are extremely distressed now. Our new home is not so new anymore. They have all managed to destroy the new throw rugs, the wooden floors have terrible scratches on them and Cole has managed to tear the sofa cushions and take the stuffing out several times. This also presents a problem when we have company,especially Cole. I guess since he's been around the smaller dogs he thinks he is one. He jumps on everyone who walks in the house, he jumps up while they are sitting on the sofa (along with the other dogs) and he'll jump from behind the sofa only to balance on the edge like the smaller ones do. It's pretty chaotic when we have company so normally we put them in our bedroom. Which brings up another subject...My husband has allowed all of them, including Cole, to sleep in our bed at night. I tried to start training Cole and Rudy to sleep in their Kennels at night but it didn't last long before he started to feel guilty about it. Now, they rule the bed. Can this be reversed? Obviously, we love dogs and I would never get rid of them but I would just like it to become more of a calm house once again. I would also like to take them for a nice walk instead of one that winds up with the dogs tangled around a pole, tree, etc. Just last night my husband and I got serious (especially me) rope burns on our legs because we had all of our dogs out (on leashed) and a new neighbor came out with his cute little 7 month old puppy without a leash. My dogs went crazy, especially Cole. He tried to eat the little dog. Again, I love my dogs but I just need the Dog Whisperer's help so that we can have a calm life again. Hey, at the very least we promise that you will eat the best food ever!!!

Sincerely,

Alicia from New Orleans