The most common dog behavior problems that people complain about include excessive barking, growling, and biting animals or people. Often the traditional methods of training dogs do not seem to work well. That's when people turn to the "dog whisperer" as Cesar Millan, a native Mexican, is often called.
Every week, the "Dog Whisperer" with Cesar Millan is shown on the National Geographic Channel. In each episode, Millan stops by people's homes to help out with behavior problems of their dogs.
"Dogs, regardless of the breed, are not born barkers or biters," Millan says. It is the humans who cause this.
Millan tells people his magic formula in rehabilitating their dogs to become 'perfect pets': Exercise, Discipline, and Affection, in that order.
Pack Leader
In the wild dogs/wolves usually travel in packs with each pack having its own leader, the Alpha male, he says. Each Alpha male makes its own rules on when to eat, hunt, sleep, and play. If there is a problem, one of its followers is either kicked out of the pack or is killed. Dogs, wild or tame, only know whether to follow or lead by instinct. Regardless of the breed, Millan thinks that dogs are born either with a low, middle, or high energy level. Only those with high energy can be leaders when they grow up. He doesn't think it is learned for dogs.
Millan says most often people don't walk their dogs. They think their big fenced backyard or going to dog parks is good enough for their dogs to get "exercise." But to dogs, even a big backyard is considered "within the walls of their homes." Exercise for Millan means walking with the dog, and is the most primal activity for bonding with the dog.
The purpose of walking, besides bonding and fitness, is to tire the dog out. In its tired state, the dog will likely be in its calm-submissive state, making it ripe for rehabilitation from its behavior problems and becoming obedient.
Dominant breeds such as rottweilers, pit bulls, German shepherds, and Dobermans can easily develop aggressive behaviors if owners do not take up the "rein" in disciplining and exercising them. If a person wants to adopt such breeds, he or she must be disciplined in training them from the beginning. It is easier when the owner naturally has high energy. Low energy people should not adopt those breeds.
With discipline, Millan explained, the dog learns that the owner is the pack leader, not the dog. Too often people let their dog have its own way around the house, creating chaos. This weakness of the owner, along with lack of walking exercise that leaves too much energy for the dog, will often lead to behavior problems.
Millan recommends owners to always be first when entering and exiting each door with the dog following behind. In that way, the dog will understand the owner is the pack leader.
Millan was quite astonished at how Americans treat their dog like a child, to the point of dressing the dog like a doll. Too much affection was mostly what they did, with lack of exercise and discipline. Millan stated that it was wrong to "humanize" a dog because it confuses the dog.
Dogs always live in the present, and never dwell on the past or the future. So, while the dog is in either a panic, fearful, aggressive, or excited state, the human patting the dog or giving affection would nurture its state of mind. It is best to give affection to the dog as a when the dog is calm-submissive. Owners should be in state of calm-assertive too, giving out positive energy, when disciplining their dogs. Dogs can sense energies given out by humans, intentional or not.
Success in the U.S.
Cesar Millan never went to school to train as a dog whisperer. It came naturally to him since he was a child. Growing up in a farm during his first seven years where his grandfather worked for a landlord, he often observed wild dogs in packs and their behavior.
After moving to a city, Millan noticed stray city dogs and pets often showed "unbalanced" minds. Even though the pet dogs, whose foreign owners were rich, often had shiny, sleekly groomed fur and fancy leashes, their behavior did not seem normal to Millan. Wild dogs were dirty, yet their behavior was balanced, observed Millan. He did not at first understand the reasons behind it until he came to the United States in 1990, at the age of 21.
Millan says, he was an illegal immigrant, sneaking into San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico. He had such tremendous desire and dream to work with dogs as a career that he was adamant on going to the United States just two days before Christmas. To make his dream come true, Millan knew that it was the only way to come to the United States because in Mexico, dogs are regarded as "lowly creatures," not respected as pets.
After wandering and living in the streets of San Diego for a month, he came across a sign seeking help in the window of a grooming salon. Knowing almost no English, he managed to get the English words together to say, "Do you have a job application?" Astonishingly, the two ladies who worked at the salon immediately hired him on the spot, without interviewing him, even when he was wearing dirty and ragged clothes. Besides letting him sleep in the back of the salon, they offered him a 50% commission.
Clients who dropped off their dogs started to take notice of the way Millan handled every type of dogs, including aggressive ones. He instinctively knew how to handle them without knowing why.
In his career as a dog whisperer, Millan has succeeded in rehabilitating thousands of dogs, even aggressive pit bulls. He says, even though almost all dogs can be rehabilitated, only one percent cannot, due to the extent of psychic damage beyond repair caused by humans. Even so, he recommends such dogs would be better off in a sanctuary for the rest of their lives than to be put to sleep.
Millan owns the Dog Psychology Center in Los Angeles. He takes in dogs from clients who go on vacation. He takes them in to his pack of rehabilitated dogs. His pack even has dogs with deformities and they all get along, simply because Millan is their "pack leader" who makes them accept each other and behave. He says, in the wild, this would not work due to the survival instinct, the weak dogs are weeded out by either being killed or kicked out.
On a typical day at 6 a.m., Millan takes at least 40 dogs on a long brisk walk along the trails for at least four hours, with a break between two hours. His dog pack range from Chihuahuas to rottweilers and pit bulls. When walking, his dogs act just as a dog pack following their leader Millan, but when taking a break, interestingly, each breed rests separately on their own. After walking, dogs are given rest for few hours while Millan works in his office.
Cesar Millan currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two elementary aged sons. His family sometimes helps him out at the Dog Psychology Center and aids him on the Dog Whisperer show.
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