Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan Makes a Big Change
Cesar Millan — star of the Emmy-nominated National Geographic Channel hit series Dog Whisperer and best-selling author — took the oath today to officially become a U.S. citizen. Cesar, who passed his citizenship test earlier this year, attended the swearing-in ceremony this morning with dozens of others in Montebello, Calif., just north of Los Angeles. Cesar was joined by his wife Ilusion and two sons, Andre and Calvin, who attended to cheer him on (they are already U.S. citizens).
“This is the ultimate culmination of living the American dream,” said Millan. “Becoming an U.S. citizen has been a goal of mine since I first came to this great country. I have much to thank this country for, and all of the success it has afforded me and my family, and now I am proud to be a citizen.”
Millan, who shot to fame in 2003 when his series premiered on the National Geographic Channel, was born in Mexico. He has a special gift for rehabilitating dogs and training their owners. His unique talent with dogs first developed on his grandfather’s farm in Mexico, where he learned at a very young age the importance of respecting Mother Nature. He chronicles his childhood in Mexico and how he crossed the border as a young man in his first best-selling book “Cesar’s Way.” He has been a legal resident of the United States since 2000.
Cesar is currently working on his fourth book, to be released this fall, and starts filming this week for the sixth season of Dog Whisperer.
Dog Whisperer — which celebrated its 100th episode last fall — is a staple of NGC’s Friday night programming. The second and third seasons of Dog Whisperer each received nominations for the Primetime Emmy for Best Reality Series. The show continues to document Cesar’s amazing rehabilitations of problem dogs, and will also include special episodes such as an upcoming look at puppy mills.
About Cesar Millan
With more than 20 years of experience working with canines, Cesar has been called a “Dr. Phil for dogs,” and for good reason. He receives as many as 100 calls a week from owners desperate for help. By the time people call Cesar, they are confronting a crisis with their beloved pets. He is their emergency responder, and often their last resort. Often, the dogs Cesar works with are “red zone cases” that trainers or veterinarians have told the owners to put down. Cesar believes every dog deserves a chance at rehabilitation before such drastic measures should even be considered. His pack of dogs are largely dogs no one thought should be left alive — and they now live in harmony as part of Cesar’s pack, and make frequent appearances on the show.
Millan was made an honorary member of the International Association of Canine Professionals and was presented The Michael Landon Award for Inspiration to Youth Through Television at the 28th Young Artist Awards.
Cesar’s most recent book, “A Member of the Family,” released in October 2008, is his third New York Times best-seller. Other things Cesar include these: The first three seasons of Dog Whisperer are available on DVD; Cesar and his wife Ilusion have founded the nonprofit Cesar and Ilusion Millan Foundation, providing financial support and rehabilitation expertise to shelters throughout the United States; Cesar has an exclusive product line available at Petco; and he is giving online seminars, “Sessions with Cesar,” an interactive coaching course. More information can be found at www.cesarmillaninc.com.
About Dog Whisperer
Each episode of Dog Whisperer follows dog behavior specialist Cesar Millan as he goes directly into the homes of dog owners — without any prior information about the dog’s case — and documents the remarkable transformations that take place under Cesar’s calm, assertive guidance.
The hugely popular series has grown into a pop culture phenomenon, including parodies on “South Park” and “Saturday Night Live;” references on popular shows including “Jeopardy!” and Bravo’s hit series “Work Out;” appearances on “Oprah,” “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “Martha Stewart,” “Today Show,” “The View” and “Live with Regis and Kelly;” and a guest star role for Cesar on the hit series “Ghost Whisperer.”
Dog Whisperer is produced by MPH Entertainment and Emery/Sumner Productions for National Geographic Channel. Executive producers for MPH Entertainment are Jim Milio, Melissa Jo Peltier and Mark Hufnail. Sheila Possner Emery and Kay Bachman Sumner are producers. For the National Geographic Channel, senior executive producer is Char Serwa; senior vice president of special programming is Michael Cascio and executive vice president of content is Steve Burns.
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I really hope the producers of The Dog Whisperer liked Sharon and Sharie from Fontana. Firstly so Blondie gets help from chasing shadows all day. Secondly because I’d love to meet Cesar..he’s my man. Ill keep my fingers crossed. Sharon
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Rebecca Cox Reply:
May 11th, 2009 at 11:10 am
I know he’s so brilliant isn’t he???!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I am your BIGGEST fan i have as picture of all of your cases and watch the show so much that my step-dad is annoyed with it.
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As a dog trainer who has trained close to 3000 dogs, wolf-dogs and wolves; a former bomb detection dog trainer; and a current guide dog and service dog trainer; I am not in the least impressed by Cesar Milan’s training techniques. I wish National Geographic Channel would have used a dog trainer who doesn’t use confrontation and intimidation to train dogs.
I am appalled that so many uninformed in the public think his training is good. I would never let him near a dog of mine!
And no, I am not a proponent of the “Totally Positive Method” of dog training! I think people should set rules and boudaries for their dogs. I think both praise and discipline should be incorporated into dog training. I think people should expect dogs to display good manners and impose consequences for bad manners. But all of the above can be accomplished without confrontation and/or intimidation.
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Di Hilsley Reply:
September 9th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Joy
I am a huge fan of Cesar Millans because his methods work, but at no time am I ever confrontational with my dogs , just calm and assertive and I have found that his methods have not only made me a calmer person but have also made my dogs well behaved , calm and balanced. My dogs aren’t perfect but they are alot better behaved and happier than a lot of dogs I see on my walks.
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Joy van Veen Reply:
September 11th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Perhaps you are only copying his better advice.
Did you do the alpha roll and lay your weight on your dog to subdue him; as Cesar Milan did in more than one episode? The one that was the worst example of his using the alpha roll in my opinion, was the episode with the Korean Jingo. Before pinning the dog, the dog exhibited anxiety and panted fast while stretching back the corners of his lips, and moving from one foot to the other restlessly. The dog reacted in terror while Cesar threw him to the floor and pinned him. The dog had been muzzled with a cloth muzzle before he was pinned. He struggled so much that Cesar wound up laying on him. When he stopped struggling, Cesar got up and declared the dog was now relaxed. The dog lay limp on his side for several minutes. When the dog struggled to get up, he staggered and drooled. I think the dog lay limp because between Cesar’s weight on the dog’s chest and the cloth muzzle preventing him from panting; the dog became oxygen deprived and may have been momentarily unconscious. Cesar could have killed this dog, either by suffocation or by causing a heart attack. Even minutes later, the dog still appeared dazed and subdued.
Did you watch the video under the K9 mag article about Cesar Milan and e-collars? He was called out for a dog aggressive and food aggressive dog. When working on the dog aggression; he waited while the dog barked at other dogs behind a fence (including his Daddy), and when the dog stopped barking and came over to him in a relaxed manner with tail gently wagging and looked attentively at Cesar; Cesar struck the dog quickly and forcefully on the dog’s side. Later he had the dog in a pen while he brought food out to it. The dog looked at Cesar in a relaxed attentive way, tail wagging; and Cesar turned and left the pen without giving the food and got a long handled tool. He prodded the dog with the tool several times. Slowly the dog’s tail wagging diminished more and more with each poke. Then the dog appeared to be puzzled and backed away. Cesar continued poking at the dog. The dog flattened his tail and backed farther away. When the dog had nowhere else to go, he began to bite at the poking tool. He never attempted to threaten Cesar who held the tool, but only the tool. When the dog reacted strongly with aggression to the tool, Cesar proceeded to come at him harder with the tool. Then when the dog stopped biting and spent his energy more in escape attempts, Cesar stopped poking him and put the dish down. But he still wasn’t done tormenting the dog. When the dog tried to eat, Cesar poked the tool into the dish and began moving the dish with the tool. The dog reacted predictably by snapping and growling at the tool when it touched his muzzle. Cesar continued until the dog backed away. With many repititions, the dog gave up trying to eat. Cesar finally had to feed him by hand.
These are two examples of Cesar being confrontationaland even cruel. In the first, he used brute force to subdue a dog in a way that was dangerous to the dog, and could have been dangerous to the owner if he tried to emulate Cesar later. In the second he tormented a dog until the dog retaliated.
These are NOT good training techniques in my opinion!
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Di Hilsley Reply:
September 14th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Hello Joy
I saw the episode with the Korean Jingo but the other one I do not recall . I have greyhounds so I personally wouldn’t roll them, even if I could !!! One of my greyhounds used to go absolutely “beserk” when he saw other dogs and using Cesars methods of being relaxed yourself with positive thinking ( ie not forecasting what your dog will do wrong ) and correcting your dog at the right time , he improved immensly.
Each to their own but I have studied the Jan Fennel way , the Cesar Millan way and also read a couple of very good books by John Fisher.
All 3 work on the same principle of understanding the dogs own language and I have got good results without being confrontational.
Di
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Joy van Veen Reply:
September 16th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Hi Di,
As I wrote before, I don’t disagree with EVERYTHING he says or does. A persons attitude will have a tremendous impact on the results of the training, either positive or negative. This “truth” has been pointed out by many trainers several decades before Cesar Milan came on the scene.
For those who have the ability to pick out the good advice from the bad, his show can be beneficial. But I don’t trust that the average pet owner will be able to do this. So overall, I think his show can cause more harm than good.
This is my personal opinion.
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i have seen neither of these episiodes, maybe i will agree with you as and when i do. i have seen the vast majority of his shows on sky 3 and also on nat geo wild and have always been impressed with the results.
i would ask you if in both of these cases did the dogs behaviour improve? i should imagine so, as he normally gets positive results and the dogs go on to be content members of the family.
he has saved hundreds of dog from being pts and takes on many cases that most trainers wont go near.
i own american bulldogs and on the few occassions when they have been overly aggressive to other dogs i have downed them and held them with the bite technique that he normally uses. all have responded positively to this and calmed down. i have done this 4 times in 8 years and am always watchfull that i am not instigating attack on myself or on the downed dog whilst doing it. its not something that i would recommend to the average person but nor does ceaser. he always has a message of dont try this at home before he does it.
just as a point of comparrison last night i was watching animal cops and 2 of the officers had to lay on an emu to catch it. do you also condenm these 2 or would you say no, that different because its a wild animal. i would say that through poor training, many dogs that cm deals with have become wild and need to be treated accordinly. the current veiw before cm arrived on our tvs was that if a dog bites, nothing can be done and the dog must be killed. i would say that if it takes a bit of rough training to save a dogs life then so be it.
if people follow his guidelines of not doing his more confrontational ways as he advises, with dont try this at home. but do follow his advice of rules, boundaries and limitations. excersise discipline and affection. and to remain calm and assertive with a possitive image in your mind as to how you wish your dog to behave. then they will achieve excellent results as does he. if you dont believe me watch his 100th episode and listen to the owners who had the extremely aggressive female pitbull. even i wondered if he was going to manage it with that one.
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Joy van Veen Reply:
September 17th, 2009 at 12:22 am
i would ask you if in both of these cases did the dogs behaviour improve? i should imagine so, as he normally gets positive results and the dogs go on to be content members of the family.
The Jingo acted very subdued afterward, but also didn’t play or even run anymore. He developed the tendancy to drool. Without a vet check I can’t say why, but I wonder if brain damage occured.
There have been several cases where the dog seemed to improve over the short term, but then reverted back. Some were eventually put down. Some people went to ther trainers. The rest whose dogs reverted are unknown as to what they finally did, or if they simply decided to live with the dog as it was. There have been several law suites against him, whether warranted or not, and more than one death of a dog under his care.
just as a point of comparrison last night i was watching animal cops and 2 of the officers had to lay on an emu to catch it. do you also condenm these 2 or would you say no, that different because its a wild animal.
I would condenm them if it were unnecessary. That it was a wild animal wouldn’t enter into my consideration.
1) How vital was it to catch the emu at that moment without waiting for someone experienced in handling such animals.
2) Was there another way they could have accomplished restraining the emu.
Not seeing the show, I can’t speak for whether there was some alternative. If the emu had to be transported from one pen to another location; instead of wrestling it down, they might have laid a trail of small portions of grain leading into a livestock trailer that could have been backed up to the gate of the pen. I would think this would be much less stressful. If the emu were running at large in a potentially dangerous area, time may have been critical.
i would say that through poor training, many dogs that cm deals with have become wild and need to be treated accordinly.
Because a dog is aggressive, does not make it wild. If you were to try to deal with a feral dog, wolf, or coyote in a confrontational way; the results would be tragic.
the current veiw before cm arrived on our tvs was that if a dog bites, nothing can be done and the dog must be killed.
I don’t know why you say that was the view before Cesar Milan’s TV show. There have been, and still are, many trainers who do rehabilitation. The most experienced will not claim they can change any dog. It is accepting out of control aggressive dogs in a class structure, that no reasponsible trainer will do. I have done rehabilitation for decades (beginning in the 60s), until the late 90s when I reduced my training to guide dogs and service dogs. The trainer I apprenticed with for 4 yrs did rehabilitation. I have met many trainers who do rehabilitation, and there must be a great many I have never met nor heard of personally. Those trainers who become trainers after a three wk course, I hope would never try to rehabilitate an aggressive dog.
The only times I thought a dog was hopeless to work with, was one that had an inoperable brain tumor that was causing the violent episodes, and a dog that had been injured with a skull puncture that was causing bleeding in the brain resulting in violence. The latter had not long to live antway, and was put to euthanised as a mercy. The former was kept alive by the owner until death took her, but had to be confined for safety. Even so, the owner wound up having more than one emergency room visit while caring for the dog.
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i have only ever seen one lawsuit leveled at him. this was due to a friend of his helping out at the centre and according to cesar inadvertantly through lack of knowledge harming a dog. i also have never seen any info to do with dogs reverting back, though i would say that if the people slip back into old habits of not excersising ect then i should imagine that they would slip back.
i like to be well informed on an issue but have been very busy today so would ask if you could kindley give links to any of the info you have provided.
obviously i dont just mean trainers saying what could happen or about the lawsuilt that i have mentioned. ive already read much of this. i would like links to other lawsuits, dogs that have died in his care( obviously not ones of old age or illness) and of complaints from past clients. thankyou. i know you are probably quite busy yourself but as im sure you can understand i need facts to agree.
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Lynne Bradshaw Reply:
February 21st, 2010 at 9:29 pm
I wonder why Joy van Veen didn’t reply to this request by Claire to provide proof of lawsuits etc when she replied to every other post until now. I just wonder…..
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Hello
I have just rescued a lovely dog. He has one problem. . . he gets very angry if we ask he to do something he doesnt want to do. My partner and I are massive fans of cesars and use his techniques. even to the extent of pinning him down and putting weight onto his back end. We are not hurting him but believe his behaviour is completely unexceptable. It seems to be working and as a result we have a much better and happier dog. He rarely gets angry and when he does we can usually control the situation with no force what so ever. If our dog was in the wild he would be treated worse if he growled, barked and snapped at other dogs like he does to us. I believe a little force (when pinning him down) is beneficial and has worked well. We tried doing it the ‘nice’ way which made him worse and take advantage of us even more.
Dogs should respect and know you are boss. He gets exercised 3 times a day and is never left alone. His behaviour is a result of people giving him treats to do what they want so he now associates bad behaviour with getting a treat. I absolutely love my dog and would never do anything to hurt him.
Sophie
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you cannot please everyone all of the time, we all have our fans and our critics no matter who we are , what we do, some people will agree some disagree with you totally, so who does this make right or wrong? we all decide for ourselves, being so publically attainable ceasar will attract fans and critics of course,as cesar himself has pointed out many times, the behaviour of his clients often is far more cruel than anything ive ever seen him do, not walking a dog for example as simple as that, people can be utterly ignorant, lazy and for those who treat a dog as their baby, their child and then wonder why the dog behaves more like a dog than a cuddly baby, i find incredulous,these people are far more harmful and cruel to animals than anything cesar millan has done that i have watched, there is one cesar and millions of quite frankly ,idiots out there that id never give a dog to until they go through rigorous training 1st, cesar speaks my language in many ways, i can see all points mentioned here, but for those criticising cesar you didnt seem to do the same to the people who had treated their dogs appallingly in the 1st place in order for cesar to get a call to save the day once again,im amazed at the lack of peoples attitudes and responsibilites to their pets, i know some of this is simply educating people how to be responsible owners but i find most peoplei see even in my local park have no clue at all what their dogs behaviour is means what they do themselves how they treat others around their dogs they are 100% unaware of anything regarding dog behaviour physcology and their own lack of awareness and handling skills far more scary than cesar millan to me!!
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I grew up in a family that treasured dogs as part of the family. There were certain expectations the dogs had to follow just like us kids. The distinction being they were an animal first and not a person. With Cesar stressing this along with exercise disapline and affection it makes sense to me. Also the calm/assertive part. A dog throwing up or dog tearing something material up and remaining calm while one needs to be addressed differently. Some, spank their dogs out of frustration when they vomit. This isn’t a reasoned reaction albeit a human one. So when Cesar takes people back to basics such as the walk, they don’t see the big picture on how is that going to stop the dog from tearing up stuff in my house. This is also why people don’t get some of his other techniques. They either don’t get it or read way to much into it. Its simple and can be used with children. Its not a dog method its a human method, before you correct be calm so the assertion you apply isn’t out of frustration.
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