Mean Talk, Mouse Traps & Water Guns: Rudd Weatherwax’s “Lassie Method”

A few weeks ago, Annie interviewed Jon Provost, who played the little boy Timmy on the Lassie TV series in the 1950s and 60s. He talked a little bit about Rudd Weatherwax, who was Lassie's owner and trainer. Jon talked about how Weatherwax only trained with praise and rewards, and Annie described him as "progressive." After the episode aired, however, she found some old videos that showed training methods that suggested otherwise. In this episode, Annie reads from Weatherwax's 1971 book, The Lassie Method: Raising & Training Your Dog With Patience, Firmness & Love, and considers the pros and cons of his suggested training techniques. Notes: Free ebook on dog training techniques you can use on people: http://schoolforthedogs.com/people 1971 footage promoting the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMrD3wO2m0I The Lassie Method: Raising & Training Your Dog With Patience, Firmness & Love --- Partial Transcript: Annie: So a few weeks ago, I interviewed Jon Provost, the actor who played Timmy on the TV show Lassie when he was a kid. And we talked just a little bit in the episode about Lassie's trainer and owner, whose name was Rudd Weatherwax. And he was kind of a big deal in the world of commercial dog training in the early to mid 1900s. He trained Asta for The Thin Man. He trained Toto for The Wizard of Oz , but Rudd Weatherwax wasn't really the focus of the interview. And, you know, I admit in some episodes I have more of an agenda than in other episodes. Some episodes of this podcast, I am just interviewing people who have done interesting things with dogs or are working with dogs. I like stories about people and dogs, and I like sharing those stories, but of course I am dog trainer. I am opinionated. I have very specific points of view on the subject matter. But two things. One, I think I just assumed that someone who spent so much time on set with a dog and their trainer would be able to recognize what they were doing as far as training goes. Like I think I just take for granted at this point that someone could break down what someone's training methods are or what their approach is. But in reality, I know things can seem kind of opaque when you're watching training happening. And if you don't know what to look for or what you might not want to be seeing. I mean, I don't know. Also I'm talking to a man who is recollecting things that happened 60 years ago when he was a kid. The other thing of course, being that Rudd Weatherwax maybe really was all praise and reward with Lassie on set or whenever Lassie was with Jon Provost. They worked together very closely for many, many years, the dog who played Lassie and Rudd Weatherwax. Interestingly, they only ever had one Lassie at a time. I learned that speaking with Jon. Anyway, that dog, whichever Lassie it was at the time, and Rudd Weatherwax I'm guessing had a very strong bond. And I'm sure that that dog was tuned into understanding what Rudd Weatherwax wanted with very, very little force or coercion necessary because they had such a history working together. And also, because again this is me guessing, that they did a lot of training for him to learn new things off set. So by the time they got onset, it was more about maintaining those behaviors, which could be done using positive reinforcement. Cause that's the way that you're going to encourage behaviors that you want to keep happening. And if you're doing something on a set in front of a camera where they might do several takes, you want behaviors that are going to keep happening... Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts Get full access to Don't Be a Dick to Your Dog at dogtraining.substack.com/subscribe