Customer Reviews

Dog Aggression: Fighting [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This hour long nicely produced video consists of footage of Dr. Dunbar giving a lecture on the topic (agression), as well as footage of him working on walk-bys and doing growly classes. - - I like the video because its high on substance - - not overly edited - - yet never boring... Dr. Dunbar is also good at mixing substance with humor and doesn't talk down to his audience (nor use lot's and lot's of loaded jargon and catch words.) He also talks in a way that gets you thinking... for example, is when he asks the human class if there were any who in their entire life never got into a fight or argument... He then explains that adequately socialized dogs know how to temper their bites... and proposes the idea of a bite to vet visit ratio... if a dog for example gets into 15 fights with the same dog, but none of them require either dog to have to take a trip to the vet, the problem may not be so serious... both have the ability to cause serious harm, yet are controlling their bites... In contrast, if a dog has been in three fights... and 2 out of 3 resulted in a trip to the vet, the problem is VERY serious... - - Dr. Dunbar then discusses common solutions and his opinion on them (including tranquilizers and castration - - as well as the roles of testes and ultimately testicles in aggression) - - Ultimately, he asserts that the real foe lies in the practice of breeders taking dogs away from their mother just when the mother is teaching them bite constraint, then humans giving dogs little of a chance to socialize with other dogs... by the time we let them out after vaccinations, suddenly we have a big problem...

After the lecture, Dr. Dunbar let's us sit in on a "growly class" and watch how he trains owners to praise and correct their dogs.

Very engaging video... If you like Jean Donaldson, you'll definitely like Dunbar...

All-in-all I think this DVD offers a lot of good information and tips on dog-dog aggression, though it is geared more towards trainers rather than owners. Some of Dr. Dunbar's methods in this DVD (the original taping appears to be from the late 80's or early 90's) utilize some traditional training techniques that aren't as commonly used these days - he does use mild yank-and-yell when first distracting a dog from its target once it starts reacting.

This also strikes me a bit as flooding rather than slowly introducing the dog to the "scary" stimulus. However, after the "yank-and-yell" the dog is immediately rewarded with praise and treats when it redirects and calms down.

With some of the dogs, it appeared as though fear were the primary cause of their reactivity and to me, these methods seemed to cause more of a shutdown than anything else. Aside from these snippets of training sessions, his concept of "growl class" is excellent and the rest of the DVD is informative. Overall, I would recommend it but with a grain of salt.

This was an excellent video. It gave me many useful tools in correcting bad behavior in my dogs. It was easy to follow and Dr. Dunbar has a wonderful sense of humor.

I don't think that anyone that did the tags for this product actually read the product description first. It is not a dog fighting tape, it is a tape to help you train your dog NOT to fight or be aggressive with other dogs. At least take a look at a product before smearing it with tags such as "appalling", "disgusting", "shameful", "sick" and "cruelty". It doesn't help your (worthy) cause when you make mistakes like this.

I thought Ian Dunbar was informative to listen to. He also had a great presentation about himself in regards to his sense of humor. I recieved some ideas from the video and also learned a few things regarding pack behavior.

Part lecture, part demonstration, it was interesting. Methods were different than I had seen before.