09/28/2019
Good for you and Thank you IAABC for this letter to National Geographic.
An open letter to the leadership team of Nat Geo Wild Dog Impossible:
The International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC) applauds National Geographic’s mission to offer intelligent, relevant and captivating non-fiction entertainment. This is a crucial objective, especially as an introduction to children and viewers largely relying on television for their scientific information.
However, your stated mission is in direct conflict with your show Dog: Impossible. In fact, the irresponsible treatment of the dogs and people on this show flies in the face of all best practices in animal training and behavior. Rather than promoting science and scientifically-proven methodology, Dog: Impossible sacrifices learning science for more dramatic television.
Matt Beisner appears to have no credentials or education in training and behavior, yet he refers to himself as a behaviorist. His claim that “energy is the one language that every animal on the planet speaks” makes clear he is not one.
His statement, “You don’t need tricks, you don’t need treats, you don’t need force,” shows just how unaware of his own actions he is. His misuse of scientific terminology leads viewers to believe they are learning demonstrated, safe and accepted strategies in helping their dogs. In fact, Mr. Beisner is forcing these dogs from start to finish of each episode. His own “tricks” are that of over-stressing dogs until they’re in a state referred to in psychology and science as “learned helplessness.”
Learned helplessness occurs when a subject endures repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control. Originally thought to show a subject's acceptance of their powerlessness, for more than half a century it’s been known instead to be the emotional “shutting down” of the subject. Anxiety, clinical depression, and related mental illnesses are common consequences of this technique in humans.
Allow us to note some aspects of the trailer and his shows, but first, to point out a few well-documented and commonly understood aspects of dog behavior so that we may better make our points understood.
Canine body language indicating stress and severe stress:
Compressed bodies
Dry, raspy panting
Wide, open eyes with dilated pupils
Heavy drooling
“Whipping” head and body back, pushing off a handler in order to get away
Growling
Fighting
Biting
Eleven seconds into the trailer, Mr. Beisner rubs his hands together, smiling, and says, “This is going to be gnarly.” All professionals know from that statement what the series will spotlight: A poorly (if at all) educated non-professional pushing dogs way beyond therapeutic limits, in the name of “results.”
Flooding, the term for inundating a subject with their fears, phobias and triggers, is ethically questionable at best, cruel and unnecessary, always. There's also a common danger of spontaneous recovery of the phobia. This is because flooding doesn't replace the fear-response with a different response, it just replaces it with no response. “No response” is simply suppression, not cure.
Throughout the trailer dogs are flooded with aversive stimuli such as other dogs, people and equipment, something an ethical professional would not, and could not do per any answerable guidelines of animal training and behavior care.
Systematic desensitization and counterconditioning, gradual exposure to the feared object, and replacement of a negative emotional association with a more pleasant one, are the recommended techniques used to treat such fear and aggression cases, per all legitimate veterinary, training and behavior organizations.
Beisner’s statement that “We know at the Zen Yard that dogs help other dogs come out of their shell and face their fear and get past their aggression” isn’t just scientifically unsupportable, his words ring hollow during the very scene playing while he says those words: Beisner restraining one dog, while his co-host pulls a leashed dog to the first in a completely unnatural gesture perhaps intended to either mimic natural dog greeting (it doesn’t) or to flood the heavily drooling dog who is unable to move or get away. The dogs end up in a fight. They have been set up to fail, and the outcome is inevitable.
In the trailer, the assistant host, Stefanie DiOrio, states, “Nervousness can easily turn to fear which can lead to aggression.” This is an accurate statement, which is why it’s so confusing that the entire show would be predicated on pushing dogs to the very edge of survivable stress and into predictable aggression, doubling down on the issues that their owners are struggling with.
We know that the dramatic changes in behavior, from stressed and wildly aggressive to “calm” dogs, make for compelling TV. To an average pet owner it looks like these dogs are making huge improvements. All clients just want their dog to “Stop being aggressive.” However, we also know that behavior suppression is not the same as behavior modification, that a stressed and shut-down dog is a more dangerous animal than one who is actively showing aggression, and that the long-term prognosis of this kind of intervention is poor for both the client and their dog.
It is also worth pointing out that, like his predecessor, Mr Beisner’s assessment of cause for much of the issues he’s asked to address is simple, made especially clear in episode 4 where he not only saves a dog, he “saves a marriage:” Women are unable to effectively lead, must be stronger, must change their ways.
Misogyny, it seems, cures dog behavior problems. Real exploration and explanation regarding the antecedents and consequences around behaviors are ignored in favor of client blaming.
The clients on the show represent thousands of clients throughout the US and beyond with whom we work every day, helping them to help their dogs. Far from being dogs “other people won’t work with,” the dogs on your show are exactly the clients and dogs that IAABC Certified Dog Behavior Consultants, as well as all members of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists, and other certified behavior specialists see and successfully work with every day.
We do so using the best practices of our field (see https://m.iaabc.org/about/ethics/), adopted by the leading behavior and training organizations, without psychologically or physically harming the animals we work with.
The IAABC urges Nat Geo WILD to stop promoting this public miseducation. The tactics employed in the name of entertainment are unnecessarily harsh and potentially dangerous to the public, and they teach yet another generation of Nat Geo watchers absolutely incorrect and harmful practices.
It remains a mystery why your network is so intent on harming dogs. After years of Cesar Milan, to now bring in a man equally unskilled, who equates terrified, angry or entrapped dogs to his own addiction history is remarkable. Are we really satisfied conflating ego with compassion, self-focus with an understanding of animal behavior? Is this the “science” your mission stands for?
The damage Nat Geo is doing to dogs by choosing this type of programming is astounding. We can only assume that the producers are unaware of this, as it’s hard to imagine such harm and cruelty would be deliberate.
Would you show a reality program on heart surgery with a photogenic “self-taught” practitioner, simply stating the star was not a doctor before showing him mutilating a real patient?
I leave you with the clearest image of suffering and abuse from your trailer: the Aussie, stressed to the breaking point, thick ropes of drool streaming from its mouth, being choked by a slip lead to compensate for the host’s inability to even effectively muzzle a dog. This dog is at the point of collapse. This dog is being tortured, and that is not hysteria. That is an assessment by any educated measure.
Please stop this cruel and dangerous programming. To do otherwise is to support that self-taught heart surgery and all the consequences it would bring; that this show is currently bringing to families struggling with their dogs.
Professionals refer to Cesar Milan’s influence on dog training as “job security” because so many dogs ruined or made far worse by his teachings are brought to us by well-intentioned, often weeping owners desperate for real help. Often it is too late.
We do not want more work due to this same phenomenon.
We’d be happy to provide you with any education and resources you need to inform your producers about what would qualify as responsible, effective, safe and thoughtful work with the same “red zone” dogs you sell so well.
Thank you for your consideration.
Marjie Alonso
Executive Director, IAABC
For the Board of Directors
Providing private, in-home training for Puppy training. Also Diabetic Alert Dog and Hearing Dog
