What I Learned From: The Dog Whisperer: Seven, Sara, and Madeliene

I think this episode may mark the first time Cesar’s work has ever sort of failed in the long run. Not that it was Cesar’s fault.

Of course, to tell that story, I have to start at the end of the episode, with Madeliene.

I’ve got to say, I really understood why the first two dogs in the episode needed to come under Cesar’s care. One was tearing up the house, and the other was becoming a danger to herself and possibly other people.

But if you have a problem with your dog being afraid of brooms, let me just say: You’re calling Cesar because you want to be on TV.

(If you disagree, feel free to drop me a comment, but really? Brooms?)

Cesar, of course, did his calm/assertive thing, and the dog ignored the broom. And then Cesar took the dog out in the car, where it barked at the windshield wipers until Cesar held up his arm so the dog couldn’t leap around the car.

Then the dog sat down. Lesson over.

Except, at the end of the episode, when they did the wrap-up, Madeliene’s owners demonstrated that the dog was no longer afraid of the broom, but that she was still going after the wipers.

Which means not only did they get Cesar to come to their house for a really silly reason, they couldn’t do the work required to fix the problem.

I have to admit some ambivalence about the story of Seven as well. Seven belongs to Jillian Michaels who is, of course, a big TV star who trains people to lose weight. But her problem sucked up a half-hour of screen time, even though the entire solution was:

If you’re going to ride your horse, and you don’t want your dog to run around barking and nipping at the horse… put it on a leash.

Yes, that was it. In fact, they showed the elapsed time for the solution to work and it took… two seconds. Literally, two seconds.

So why the half-hour story? Jillian. Nothing against her, she seems like a very nice lady who wants to help people. But her story didn’t need a half-hour.

I’ll say what I would have liked, though – a full hour on the middle dog, Sara. Sara has so much anxiety about her owners leaving that she:

Hopped a very tall fence. So the owners made it higher, and she…
Hopped the even taller fence. And…

Got up on the roof of the neighbor’s house. And…

They took her inside, where she broke out of a bunch of kennels. Then…

Tore the molding off the door, flipped the lock, and opened the front door with her mouth.

This is clearly a dog who was freaked out, and trying to help her took a lot of work.

They set up cameras in the house to see what she was doing, which was kind of heartbreaking.

They set up a Scat Mat, which gives the dog an “unpleasant pulse” when it tried to get near the door or windows. And Cesar practiced putting the dog in a kennel in a calm/submissive way.

And in the end, the owners were happy to say that they can now leave the dog up to five hours at a time. After something like four months of work.

First of all, that’s what I call a story. You feel for the people. You feel for the dog.

And it’s a real problem, one that I’m sure a lot of owners face, and could information on. But they raced through the solution so you could see the story of the little dog who needed a leash.

Eh. So I feel like what I mostly learned is that you really shouldn’t call Cesar if you’re famous or have a silly problem.

But for the sake of this entry, I’ll up the advice I really thought was valuable: Teach your dog that their kennel isn’t a prison, and they’ll go in and stay in and not tear up your house.

What I Learned from The Dog Whisperer: Maxwell, Brooklyn, and Tipper

Generally when I talk about “The Dog Whisperer,” I like to do a little summary of the episode, but I’m going to let the last be first, and give you:

Cesar Millan’s 6 Step Plan for Walking Your Dog

Take a deep breath.
Stay calm.
Set the pace.
Pick up speed.
Face your obstacles.
Get in the zone.

So if you always wanted to know that, there you are.

As for the rest of the episode, it could probably have been called: Dogs Get Excited, So You Shouldn’t.

The quick version goes like this:

We’ve got three dogs, and three different owners. The dogs are Maxwell, Brooklyn, and Tipper.

As usual, Cesar put them all through their paces, and as Cesar says at the head of each episode: “I train people.”

In this case, that’s really all he did. Faced with three dogs who get excited too easily, and sometimes get aggressive when they get excited, Cesar trained the owners to calm down. Which made the dogs calm down.

(Cesar even said as much in the episode. When one owner said she was learning to calm her dog, Cesar replied, “No, we learned how to calm YOU down.”)

Though the “Coming up next” always tries to make the episode look like it’s going to turn into a blood-fest, all in all this was a calm episode about calming people down.

The money quote though, came from the second family. When watching the show, she always said to herself: “It’s obvious. What are people thinking?” She then apologized to everyone who has ever been on the program.

I suspect just about everyone on the show feels the same way.

Well Done, Daddy

If you watch “The Dog Whisperer” at all, chances are good that you already know who Daddy is.

If not, the short version is: Daddy is Cesar Millan’s right-hand dog.

And what a dog he was.

I say was because Daddy recently passed away at sixteen years of age – an impressive number for a pit bull.

delight! related the story of Daddy in our online extension this month. If you want to know a little more about him, I highly suggest checking his story out here.

Cesar memorializes his good friend and partner here.

And you can find Daddy’s Facebook fan page here.

What I Learned From: The Dog Whisperer: Kobe, Banjo, and Kisses

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been checking out Cesar Millan as he tackled some larger issues. Raising dogs from puppies. Dealing with dogs that were, in his estimation, on the verge of killing other dogs.

This week gave us something a little different – a grab bag of doggie problems that weren’t really related. To wit:

Banjo: A former animal vaccine tester, Banjo was afraid of humans and refused to go near anyone. Even his owners.

Kobe: Was blinded in one eye due to a terrible accident with another dog. Hated other dogs ever since, and then got dangerous around people.

Kisses: A teeny little dog that liked to be in control. Also, she liked to tinkle on the floor when a certain friend came by.

Since all of these issues don’t center around a recognizable theme, the lessons to take away from the episode are a little more wide-ranging than usual.

Except, of course, for the always familiar: Calm. Assertive.

But there were a couple of interesting lessons along the way:

Kobe: Kobe’s main issue was acting out against other dogs, which spread to people. To fix this, Cesar had the family practice how to introduce people and other dogs into Kobe’s territory.

This all happened very, very quickly. And the issue seemed to stem much more from the people being cowed by Kobe, than by any real problems with Kobe’s aggression.

Banjo: Due to the fact that Banjo was afraid of humans, Cesar worked on building up Banjo’s confidence. His breed makes him want to hunt for raccoons, so they got some urine and had Banjo look for it. And rather than patting Banjo on the head, he encouraged the owners to touch the underside of his head, lifting the dog’s head up.

Kisses: Kisses was aggressive and easily excited into piddling on the floor. So Kisses’s master had to learn how to discipline the dog, instead of punishing the dog.

Watching “The Dog Whisperer,” I have to admit the thing that I find the most interesting about the show is just how well EVERY dog reacts to Cesar. Though I haven’t seen every episode, without fail the dog who attacks other dogs, or acts aggressive against humans, invariably takes to Cesar like a duck to water.

Whether Cesar really knows what he’s doing, or whether Cesar is just like those moms who can put ANY baby to sleep, no matter how cranky, it’s amazing to watch.

I’d say the big lesson of the show was, as always, Calm/Assertive. Show the dog you’re the leader, and they will follow.

The Dog Whisperer: Emily and Nicky

One of the great things about shows on channels like National Geographic is that they know when they have a hit, and they run with it.

Currently on Friday nights, they’re running up to two hours worth of “The Dog Whisperer,” and they’ve even gone so far as to stick two early half-hour episodes together to make a full hour.

In this case, the episode(s) in question followed two different dogs, Emily and Nicky, who both showed aggression towards other dogs. Both were also in Millan’s “Red Zone,” – which is the point at which a dog “wants to kill another dog.”

I can see why these two stories were put together thematically, as they both emphasized some of the same lessons, came to some of the same conclusions, and followed similar story arcs. To wit.

First, we met the dogs. Both were aggressive towards other dogs, and in the Red Zone.

In both cases, Millan suggested a stay at his dog psychology center, in order to integrate the dogs with other dogs.

In both cases, things seemed pretty much okay when Millan was walking the dogs around, but they tended to fall apart when the original owners took hold of the dog’s leash.

And finally, after their stay, both dogs seemed much less aggressive, and the owners had a tearful moment as their dog came back.

But here’s what I learned:

Owners need to remember to be calm and assertive.
Dogs, in their turn, must learn to be calm and submissive.
Owners, in general, need to make sure their dog learns to integrate with other dogs as soon as possible.

What have you learned from The Dog Whisperer?

Cesar Speaks

Take a look at this conversation between Cesar Millan and Charlie Rose.

The Dog Whisperer: How to Raise the Perfect Dog

“How to Raise a Perfect Dog,” was, in my estimation, an interesting glimpse into Cesar Millan’s head.

(Also, I assume you knew that the title of the episode is also the title of his new book?)

I don’t know that it’s worth going into detail on the “plot” of the show, but even as a long-time dog owner (I literally had one in my home since the day I was born) I did learn a few things I thought were interesting.

In the episode, Millan is raising four puppies – a process that took several months to shoot, I’m sure, but which goes by in the usual Dog Whisperer hour. During that hour, I discovered:

When choosing puppies, Millan kept emphasizing that he wanted to select dogs with “medium energy,” as opposed to the most high-energy members of each litter. I must admit, after all of the “problem dogs” he’s worked with, this kind of felt like he was cheating a bit. Instead of proving how easily he can “fix” a tricky dog, he started with a major advantage.
Millan is very big on spaying and neutering, to the point where he got one of dogs fixed on the show. He stated he did it before doggy adolescence set it, which cuts down on bad behaviors and aggression. Which, again, felt like cheating.

The big lesson to take away from the episode was this: Give yourself every advantage when it comes to raising a dog.

Cesar Millan is very, very, very good at handling dogs. And yet, he still chooses to make the dog-raising process as easy as possible for himself.

If Millan, who knows so much more about dogs than I do, thinks it’s best to get a medium-energy dog, and get it fixed, who am I to argue?

And what say you, Millan-followers? What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned from Millan?