In yii 1.x you need DateTimeI18NBehavior (extends CActiveRecordBehavior) to convert input dateformat to database dateformat (for example: input "31.12.2013" needs to be converted to "2013-12-13").
Converting should be automated specially if you have a lot of tables (models) with a lot of datefields.
Using DateTimeI18NBehavior works, but is not the best way (triggers ActiveRecordLogBehavior even if nothing changes).
In my opinion ActiveRecord ($model->save()) should handle international date formats without the need to convert the imput format (view) to database format (mysql).