A CESAR MILAN STORY

I am sharing this post which was on my Facebook page this morning.  It's long, but worth reading.

For those of you who wondered what the outcome was for the Husky (hybrid?) that Cesar strung up on his TV show (and was bitten for his efforts, thank you very much). From a Facebook friend:

I stumbled across this response from Shadow's original foster dad who ended up adopting Shadow after he was absolutely tortured on the episode mentioned in this article. In the group Siberian Husky Owners
Waring: Depressing! But luckily has a happy ending and the foster even linked in photos of Shadow being a happy boy!

" Actually Shadow was my foster, I adopted him out to that family as they had previously had a Malamute and seemed suitable. We have a policy that we will take back any adopted dog if it does not work out, I had no idea they were having issues with Shadow until i got an email saying he was going to be on the dog whisperer. After watching that episode I was furious, and started asking what the problem was with Shadow, as he had exhibited no issues whatsoever when I fostered him.

The problem was the woman was using Cesars aggressive training techniques which had a really bad effect on Shadow, who ended up biting her when she was trying to discipline him for getting into her vegetable garden. (This was a few weeks after the cesar episode, notice they never mention they failed with him).

I had to fight to get Shadow back from the woman who was going to get rid of him after that. We had a clause in the adoption contract saying they had to return a dog before disposing of it. She did not want to honor that agreement, and was going to send him off to a wolf refuge where he would never get to be loved or interact with humans again, or be PTS.

Once I got him back (I drove up there and took him once she caved in), it took several months of kind loving treatment to get him back to being the sweet dog he always was. After that I decided to keep him as he had bonded to me and Vushki and I think adopting him out again would have traumatized him again.

I found out that the scene where he bites Cesar they had been working him up for an hour before they got that clip, turns out it is all about the show and not the dog. They deliberately bait the dogs to get them to react. We did contact the producers and I think they persuaded the woman to give Shadow back to the rescue, as she was determined to not give him back to us, she even refused to talk to the lady that runs the malamute rescue.

I'm glad I saved him again, and I felt really bad about subjecting him to that in the first place, it is hard to tell if a family is going to be good or bad when you are fostering.

Anyway he is a sweet boy and sleeps right next to me every night, in fact he likes to try to push me off the bed by stretching out as far as he can. He has the best recall of any of my dogs, and sticks to me like glue most of the time."

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  • SJK

    @ Anna, I totally agree! It was a steep learning curve but I feel I'm better equipped now to deal with so-called "difficult" dogs. Learned a lot about myself as well. They'll teach you patience!

  • Anna Morelli

    @SJK and humility....:-D

  • SJK

    Humility is a dog tricking you out of the last slice of pie... True story.