Cesar Millan came to America with the goal of being the best dog trainer, but along the way something happened: he started working with dog owners and found his gift to them to be equal if not greater than his unique connection with dogs. It would be a little like Derek Jeter hoping to get a job at Dick's Sporting Goods and ending up as the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees. Cesar's gift would have that kind of wide appeal and could translate into seemingly limitless possibilities. I sat down with Cesar on the set of his show, The Dog Whisperer, last week to find out how it happened.
It's been documented in Cesar's first book, Cesar's Way, how his popularity skyrocketed simply by having the ability to communicate with dogs in their language. His ability to change nervous, fearful, or aggressive states of mind in dogs to calm submission and balance won the hearts of clients like Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Oprah Winfrey and a long list of other celebrities. He soon began working on a television show (that airs Friday nights on the National Geographic Channel) meeting with dog owners who were unsuccessful in being able to subdue their dogs, in many situations, red zone cases -- dogs that have killed another dog or had the potential to.
Viewers were at first mesmerized by his ability to bring the dogs back to balance, but then a second phenomenon began happening -- the dog owners' transformations became equally appealing. Cesar showed them that their own unconscious issues were being manifested by the dogs. Aggression in the dog may have been covering for some weakness in the owner. By helping the owner become "calm, assertive," the dog fell back into a calm submissive and balanced state. But it was Cesar's unique modeling of "calm assertive" that displayed his power and transformed the dog owners. Viewers of the show can tell you -- Cesar's energy is unlike anything that's been seen before.
Since moving to primetime in 2005, The Dog Whisperer has become increasingly popular, doubling in viewership (over half a million) and going worldwide. He's wildly popular in Australia (the highest rated show on the channel), about to go on tour in England with live seminars and recently garnered a People's Choice award for favorite animal show in 2010. Cesar has already authored four books. And in a sort of tribute to how far he's infiltrated pop culture, Comedy Central's South Park featured an episode using Cesar to rehabilitate Eric Cartman.
To understand the gift, one has to get a feel for where he grew up in Culiacan, Mexico. Cesar explains that if life is divided into four worlds: instinctual, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. As he was growing up, he developed a deep connection to the instinctual and spiritual worlds. He had no access to education, and the emotional was not available because, "if you did express certain emotions you were called gay or weak." Cesar explains what got his attention when he came to America:
What I saw and what I knew was that dogs were not allowed, or the humans were not allowing themselves to be instinctual. And the instinctual world is in order. That's why we always say Mother Nature is perfect, because nobody interferes with Mother Nature and so it evolved as what it is. America is not focusing on being instinctual because they don't have to. America focuses on being very intelligent because that's how you make more money.
The way Cesar describes his upbringing, the instinctual was more available because of what he calls a "survival state."
It's survival as a ... waiting because sometimes you have to wait for food. So it forces you to be calm. Also surrendering to ... one tortilla and maybe a plate of beans, so it makes you surrender that this is a blessing. America, it's all about ... 'This is what I want, and I want it at this temperature, and I didn't want this much beans, I just wanted.' I mean it just gets into a more entitlement and they forget the gratefulness. You can go to church; it doesn't mean you're a grateful human being, that's just the behavior. Gratefulness to me is when you practice this appreciation every single day, so because we're lacking in food and our families are so large, we have no choice just to practice calm submissive state and our parents practice calm assertive state, this is just what it is. So we live more in what it is. We don't question life. And so it's almost like you live in a meditative state of mind.
In order to truly help his clients, Cesar would need to go through his own emotional transformation to fill in the missing pieces in his psyche. He's very open about his personal rehabilitation, having to work on issues of selfishness and understanding women's psychology. He feels that his culture taught him a macho or sexist attitude, but in order to transform his own marriage he would have to learn from his wife Ilusion how to speak to her heart first and then mind and body. (According to Cesar, humans are the only species where male and female are exact opposites ... men relate primarily in the order of body, mind, heart and women the opposite order. All other animal species male and female psychology is the same.)
The biggest fans of the show Cesar says are "humans who work with humans."
Child development, teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists for humans ... we get a lot of great emails from them, 'Cesar, I practice calm assertive energy with my clients and it WORKS!' So you know maybe in the animal world I don't get applause from 100 percent of them (referring to the few detractors), but I'm getting it over here in the human psychology. The New York Times did an article about raising children with exercise, discipline and affection, so obviously the journalists got to see it the way you're seeing it. 'Wait a minute, we can actually implement this formula and regain balance in our children. Our children are becoming obese ... why, because the lack of exercise. Children are becoming disobedient . . . why, because of the lack of rules boundaries and limitations.' It's not that America is not giving affection. America does affection, affection, affection. But I think it's the three of them. The three of them represent balance to me. It's about fulfilling the needs.
Critics of Cesar's methods tend to focus on his work with red zone cases calling him "punitive" or using "negative reinforcement." They object to his either holding the leash in the air, (the perception being that he's choking the dog), or pinning the dog on the ground. "Positive training methods are the only way in all cases," say some. What they don't say is that they can't rehabilitate red zone cases and they favor medication or euthanasia. "I'm not for everybody ... I'm focusing on fulfilling the needs of the dog," Cesar points out. It's hard to argue with his results rehabilitating red zone cases and re-integrating them back into society as balanced happy dogs. They number in the hundreds if not close to a thousand.
I asked Cesar if he was offended at all by the episode of South Park on Comedy Central featuring him as the only reality show expert who could rehabilitate Eric Cartman.
Absolutely not, it was fantastic. They love the show. The guys called me, the creators of the show (Trey Parker and Matt Stone), they said, 'Cesar, we love your show, we're going to do a thing on you and we hope you enjoy it.' No, no it's fantastic.
Sitting with Cesar, I got the feeling that there was nothing he couldn't do. Because of the translatable nature of his instinctual knowledge it seems like the sky's the limit. Hold seminars for CEO's? Be an advisor to the President? Speak to psychologists about the natural order of things? No problem. His influence seems to expand to anyone or group looking for a shift in paradigm. Cesar agreed that the show is about much more than helping dogs. I labeled it as a shift in consciousness, and asked him what he thought?
It's a reconnect to simplicity, regain something that we lost. Our ancestors had it. They probably didn't know how to go to the moon, you know, and how to create certain things, but they knew how to live a very simplistic life. I think we are in the process of really living the four worlds, you know, the instinctual world, the intellectual world, the emotional world, and the spiritual world is going to be available for everybody. A dog is a vehicle, you know, a dog is a window to Mother Nature and that's the closest species we have. It's an up and down thing, the human goals, because the human is always an explorer, an adventurist. But many times they don't have to invent life, you know, they just have to keep it the way it is. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, you just have to reconnect and pass that information to the next generation, you know, so I feel blessed, I always say God chose me to be the person to help humans to reconnect through a dog. The dog is a vehicle. You can do it with anything else. Tony Robbins does it with people, Wayne Dyer does it with people, Deepak Chopra does it from a prayer, so it's a lot of people who want the same thing, it's just I'm the person who's doing it through dogs.
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Professor Milgram elaborated two theories explaining his results: (Do you see how the REAL RESEARCHER
The first is the theory of conformism
The second is the agentic state theory, wherein, per Milgram, the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer sees himself as responsibl
This prove one of My points: You Do Not get the Best Results using the 'pure positive' Dogma, still just because any other Approach goes against their Though Reform they are Conform with the Results of the training and thus the group is the person's behavioral model.
Both are about working with the dog, as a dog, with boundaries and consistenc
From Vicky, writer of http://www
Also Refutes one of the 'arguments
'Men with high levels of testostero
I mean 6 'teen' men with low testostero
And Gives (theoritic
'humans are the only species where male and female are exact opposites ... men relate primarily in the order of body, mind, heart and women the opposite order.'
'all 13 of the Women Obeyed to the end, although many were highly disturbed and some openly wept.'
Teens? that's weird! all studies point that was WOMEN no 'Teenagers
Maybe I miss it, like you miss Jeff Witzeman Article, something typical of those Millan's Bashers
'The more we find out about human psychology
Sheridan, C.L. and King, K.G. (1972) Obedience to authority with an authentic victim
My suggestion is that, before you become an adoring fan, you read further and watch more. Here are some suggestion
http://www
http://www
http://www
http://bey
You do not need to bully your dog to get him to behave!
“Hype, bully, punish,” these are all words that are expressly opposite of what’s actually happening. Do people misinterpr
It’s not hype if it works. If it doesn’t work for you, fine then promote what does work for you, but I’m not sure if slandering something you don’t understand has merit.
Those in the profession with actual credential
Here's a good link for readers of this blog to help them understand the lack of "merit" of many of the shows methods/de
http://www
Dog training is currently an unregulate
Hype? Yes. Stressed dogs aren't "shut down," they're "calm." It's not strangling
Good things- Exercise your dog
- don't treat them like humans
-be calm.
i can gaurentee there aren't many trainers out there who DON"T say the same things.
However many of his methods are extremely out dated and do not work. They have been known to be extremely agressive and phsyically harmfull to the dogs.
hanging dogs- using their throats to drag someone while exercising them. Working them to exhaustion before then approachin
Millions of people watch because the show is well shot. Because the show SAYS it is harping new magic ways to make your dog behave- when really it's just using the methods that were used back decades ago. What don't we see? we don't see a show with positive reinforcem
Here some names FYI
Ed Frawley, Jan Fanewell her Amichieng Bond and her School of Dog Listeners, The Monks of the New Skate, Cheri Lucas, John Fisher, Keith Mathews ... Ring a Bell?
So when you state that Cesar's Methods 'don't work' it's ONLY your Biased OPINION.
We're not selling cars here. What's being sold is the life and safety of a dog, a living being, and all who come in contact with that being.
'Let's not get physical'? I'm sorry, but touch is a form of communicat
And seeing how his model includes four worlds that all fall within what can be called the mental realm, your criticism is even more ridiculous
Cesar does dogs and the humans who love them a great disservice by ignoring all the research done by animal behavioris
Please let's use common sense. When my dogs and I are getting ready to go outside, my dogs aren't debating questions of rank and who should go through the door first...ra
I am making great progress with my hyper easily distracted dog without having to dominate him. He responds to MY calm authority without my having to dominate him to the extreme you are talking about. Shoot I just want to be able to open my front door to family and friends without them getting barked at or jumped on by a german shepherd. I have never had to hang him by his leash - I just stand between him and my guests until he calms down. He responds to the hissing sound Cesar teaches. I also encourage his calm state with extra affection - petting and soothing vocal compliment
My guests are actually shocked by the change.
My Dear, Suzy (Alexandra
How you call this?
A support Ad hominem?
I wish I had heard this years ago. Thanks Cesar.
Now - how do you get a dog to stop barking when out in the yard? He loves being outside but I have to bring him in when he barks. Open to any and all suggestion
Witezeman implies that it's okay to choke (that's putting it nicely, the dog is suspended in the air and helicopter
Corporate media has never been accused of having morals. They air all kinds of trash TV. Hence, they will air Cesar's show in spite of the many letters and appeals they got from animal behavioris
I'm not surprised that it's the number one tv series in Australia however, they probably think it's a comedy.
Cesar's insights remind us we can always strive to be better, more balanced pack leaders for our pets....bu
The calm that I feel is enormous and the reaction of people around me is transforma