Early this morning, I took my 2 dogs out walking by the canal. An old collie mix was wondering around on his own (he wore a collar so I suspected he'd escaped from a nearby house) and he started to walk alongside with us - a little nervous but friendly enough.

This man came near us and he had two black dogs and I could tell from the body language that one of his dogs was very dominant and excitable. So, first of all, I put myself in pack leader mode, so my dogs understood not to react ..

What happened next was that this excited dog picked up on the nervousness of the lost dog and a fight began. Several dog walkers were nearby and a lot of screaming went on, people get so excited and scared in these situations and seem to create more nervous energy.

I got someone to hold onto my dogs and I went up near these 2 fighting dogs and started to make those click, click, pshhtt, pshhtt noises that Cesar Millan always uses to correct a dogs behaviour. This made the 2 dogs temporarily back off each other and I took a couple of steps towards the more dominant dog, and he backed off, and I took another step towards him, again he backed off. Then I just stuck my two fingers out like I was showing him my teeth and he lay down. Then I got the owner to put him on the lead.

There was a bit of blood but not too much damage to either dog fortunately.

I would never have known any of this but for watching the Cesar Millan DVD series 1 set.

Of course I don't advise others to try this unless they are fearless about these sorts of things. Because animals always pick up on the energy of fear and react to that.

But I am so appreciative of what Cesar Millan has done for my understanding of dog psychology! Afterwards, everyone came up to me to ask me what I had done, of course I ended up advising everyone to watch the Dog Whisperer or buy the DVDs.