The dog whisperer

BUSINESS CESAR MILLAN

WORDS BY JOANNE CRONRATH BAMBERGER

Cesar Millan worked his way up from dog groomer to become TV’s top “dog psychologist.” Here’s how he cornered a niche market.

NuNu “The Demon Chihuahua” didn’t stand a chance against Cesar Millan.

At first glance, NuNu seems like a sweet, gentle little pooch, reminiscent of the Taco Bell spokesdog. But try getting near his owner, Tina, and NuNu turns into a snarling, snapping little monster intent on taking a bite out of whichever fleshy body part comes closest to his teeth-at least that’s how he behaved until Millan, known as the “Dog Whisperer,” stepped through the door of NuNu’s home.

36-year-old Millan, a compact, assured man with closely-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, doesn’t just enter a room. When there’s dog behavior at stake, he strides in, confidently dominating the space-an important first step in taming an insecure, anxious or aggressive pooch.

“When he walks through a door, he has an amazing presence,” says Tina Madden, NuNu’s owner. “He’s not a large man, but he just takes over the room. He gains respect with your dog the moment he steps through the door.”

Millan’s magic touch with canines transforms problem pups into calm, happy, obedient pets, seemingly in a matter of moments. He’s been so successful in rehabilitating aggressive dogs, people not only started comparing him to the “Horse Whisperer,” (remember the Robert Redford movie?), but also dubbed him the Dr Phil of the dog world. He’s taken that magic touch and turned it into a successful business, achieving TV stardom along the way.

As a boy, living on his grandfather’s ranch near the central Pacific Coast of Mexico, the locals nicknamed him “El Perrero” (”The Dogman”), because a pack of dogs followed him obediently wherever he went.

He says that connection led him to discover his knack for understanding the psychology of dog packs. But how did Millan, who spoke little English when he came to the US just 15 years ago, become the phenomenon he is today, with a booming business, his own TV show and an upcoming book?

His first job in America was as a dog groomer. While clipping and shampooing his canine clients, Millan noticed that many had behavior issues he had rarely seen in dogs in Mexico. He discovered that dog owners were giving affection to their dogs first, without much exercise or discipline. Millan believes that giving love, without structure and boundaries, undermines a dog’s natural pack instincts, thereby creating anxious, disobedient and sometimes aggressive animals. So, he concluded, to remedy the problems, one needed to provide a more pack-like structure in a dog’s domesticated environment.

Millan’s approach, and his high level of success using it, has turned him into something of a pop culture phenomenon. Using the kind firmness of Supernanny Jo Frost and a “shush” reminiscent of Dr Evil in the Austin Powers movies, Millan changes anxious, hostile pooches into calm, submissive doggies within minutes.

So what is his secret to quickly taming the savage beast?

Millan, founder of the Dog Psychology Center of Los Angeles and host of “Dog Whisperer” on the National Geographic Channel, claims it’s not really a secret-the first step is understanding that dogs are dogs, not people.

Choose a good ‘pack’
to work with: a group
of people in the same
frame of mind as you,
who are positive.“It’s important to see your dog as an animal first, and many people don’t want to,” explains Millan. He says that if dog owners don’t understand the basic psychological needs of dogs (exercise, discipline, and affection-in that order), serious behavior problems are inevitable. When we treat our pooches like family members, they get the signal that they are in charge, allowing them to become, in their little doggy brains, the leader of the pack. When that happens, animal behavior gets out of control. So his human clients must regain their status as the figurative dominant head of the pack.

But, after Millan’s initial consultation, was NuNu cured? “I’d say he’s about 85% better than before we met Cesar,” says Madden. NuNu is not the only one who has changed as a result of Millan’s techniques: it’s been almost two years since Madden first consulted with Millan about her churlish Chihuahua, but she says it’s been well worth the effort, both for her pet and for herself.

“Cesar told me I needed to be more confident with myself, then [NuNu] would have more confidence in me,” says Madden. “For instance, when I walk NuNu, I now walk with my shoulders up and my back straight. Little things like that have signaled to NuNu that I’m in charge.” But Millan’s intervention wasn’t a magic fix. Madden says it took more than a year of working with her pet every day before she felt comfortable allowing NuNu to be around others, and pretty sure that he would be well-behaved.

As a result of his successful strategy of “training humans and rehabilitating dogs,” Millan has created a niche for himself, especially in the celebrity-filled world of Southern California. Word of his initial successes spread quickly, leading him to the troubled pets of the famous, such as Oprah Winfrey and Daisy Fuentes (who appears on one episode of “Dog Whisperer” with her English bulldog, Alfie).

On average, Millan works with 10 dogs a week (when he’s not filming his show), but he gets an average of about 100 calls a week from desperate dog owners and is currently booked one year in advance.

Millan wasn’t quite that busy when he started his business in 1994. As a classic word-of-mouth business, his dog psychology center grew slowly, but he wasn’t discouraged. Helping troubled canines is Millan’s calling and he knew that focusing on a job he was passionate about was the key to long-term success. It turns out that people are prepared to pay, too. In a niche market, the dog whisperer’s services don’t come cheap: generally, the price of a session with Cesar at the center is $250, while a house-call by the man himself is $350. One session is usually about two hours.

Millan’s approach is not all structure and drill-sergeant discipline, however. There’s also a subtle, Zen-like quality to his philosophy of why his approach creates changes in his human clients.

“Difficult dogs change clients,” says Millan. “In life, you don’t get what you want, you get what you need. If a person gets a dog with certain issues, there’s a reason for that. Maybe it’s to help the owner work out issues of their own.”

Find out more about Cesar Millan’s Dog Psychology Center at www.dogpsychologycenter.com