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Cesar Millan is a dog behaviourist and author, best known for his television series, Dog Whisperer, which airs on the National Geographic Channel. He also has a bestselling book on dog training, and is known for having many celebrity clients. In his book, Millan states that he has rehabilitated thousands of problem dogs over the years. On the show, he is famous for repeating the mantra that to keep dogs happiest and most mentally stable, their owners need to set "rules, boundaries, and limitations."

His pack of dogs includes all breeds and is full of animals who have been rehabilitated from a wide range of extreme behavior issues, from insecurity to severe aggression. He is frequently seen walking very large groups of dogs at a time, through the streets of Inglewood, California.

Biography

Early childhood

Millan was born c. 1969, and raised in Culiacan, Mexico, one of several children to Felipe Millan Guillen and Maria Teresa Favela d'Millan, though Millan credits his grandfather as the man who most influenced his life's purpose. In his book, Millan states that in every dog he sees the spirit of his grandfather.

Culiacan is one of the oldest cities in Mexico, about 643 miles from Mexico City, but Millan spent much of his early childhood at a farm in Ixpalino, about an hour away in the Sinaloa region of Mexico, as his grandfather was one of the campesinos there, one of the many families who each rented a parcel of land to work. His grandfather's main job was in caring for the dozens of cows, herding them from pasture to stream and back again each day. The house that they lived in was small, made of brick and clay, with only four rooms, and no running water through most of Millan's childhood, but it was the lifestyle of the majority of the people in the area, and Millan states that he never felt poor -- he regarded the farm as "paradise." He was fascinated by all animals from an early age, but was most drawn to dogs, and spent a great deal of time observing the behavior of the packs of farm dogs, and how they worked on the farm, such as by helping his grandfather to herd the cows, or guarding family members from aggressive animals. Millan points out that those dogs never needed any special training or commands or to be rewarded with cookies -- they just naturally "did the jobs that needed doing," as was in their nature. He cites those working dogs as being his true teachers in the art and science of canine psychology.

Millan also noticed how the behavior of the packs would change between different farms. In some packs, the dogs would fight often for dominance, to see which one would be pack leader, while the owner family would simply look on. However, the dogs on Millan's farm didn't seem to have a pack leader, because his grandfather always maintained a calm assertive leadership role.

Mazatlan

When he was 6 or 7, Millan's family moved to Mazatlan, a coastal city which is the second largest in Mexico, since his father (another major positive influence in Millan's life) decided that he wanted to move the children within range of better schools. They moved into a small apartment in the working class part of town, and Millan's father got a job delivering newspapers. According to Millan, the worst part of the experience was not having the animals. They had initially tried bringing the dogs (and chickens) to live in the apartment with them, but it just wasn't manageable. It was in the city, though, that Millan saw his first purebred dog, an Irish setter belonging to a local doctor. He was struck by the dog's beauty and grooming, and how different it was from the wild pack dogs he'd seen on the farm. After repeated requests, two years later the doctor gave Millan one of the dog's puppies, who Millan named Saluki and kept as a companion for the next ten years.

Millan's childhood in the city was fairly normal. He played sports with the neighborhood children, but missed the outdoor farm life, so to help him cope with the stress of the city, his family enrolled him at the age of 6 in a judo class. Millan excelled, and had won six championships in a row by the age of 14. His mentor there, Joaquim, told him stories about Japan, and taught him various meditation techniques. Also when he was 14, Millan's father got a better job as a government photographer, and moved the family into a much higher-class part of town, only a block away from the beach.

In adolescence, as Millan was deciding what to do with his life, he states that he knew it had to be something to do with dogs. When his family had gotten their first television set, he had watched television shows such as Lassie and Rin Tin Tin (black and white, and dubbed in Spanish), and once he figured out that the behavior of the dogs on the show was something that they must have been trained to do off-screen, he decided he wanted to get that job for himself. He dreamed of moving to Hollywood and becoming the world's greatest dog trainer. So at 15, he got a job at a local veterinarian's office, helping out by sweeping and grooming and cleaning up after the animals. He says that it became rapidly apparent that he had a natural talent, as he had no fear of dogs, and could grab dogs that "even the vet wouldn't go near." He was teased for this in school, as some of the other children began calling him el perrero (trans: "the dog boy"), an unkind term in a city where dogs were seen mostly as mangy scavengers and nuisances.

American journey

On December 23, 1990, at the age of 21, Millan decided that though he spoke no English, he was going to sneak over the border into the United States, not to Arizona where he had family, but to Hollywood, to follow his dream. His family objected, but scraped together $100 USD for his journey, and Millan found a way in via Tijuana. He didn't have enough money for an official visa, and didn't want to pay any of the professional smugglers, so he spent weeks at the home of a cousin in Tijuana, studying the border. His first three attempts to cross by himself failed, but he eventually ran into someone who only wanted to charge him the $100 that he had, so he accepted. The next night, after an arduous journey which involved spending hours in a water hole waiting for the right time to try to sneak past the border guards, he succeeded, and on the other side of the border he was put into a taxi towards San Diego, a city Millan had never heard of. He lived on the street for a month, but then got a job, and eventually room and board, at a dog grooming parlor. According to his book, as with his earlier job at the veterinarian, Millan rapidly gained a reputation as someone who could work easily with the difficult and most aggressive dogs, who would often behave quite differently around Millan's calm assertive personality than they did around their owners.

Millan's next job was washing limousines, work that had been offered to him by one of the San Diego clients who liked Millan's work ethic. Though the duties didn't involve dogs, Millan accepted because the new employer had also offered him his own car, an '88 Chevy Astrovan, and it allowed a move to Los Angeles. Millan changed his career goal from that of being a Hollywood dog trainer, to being someone who would rehabilitate the many troubled dogs he was seeing in the United States, so he started his own business, the Pacific Point Canine Academy, and came up with a logo, a jacket, and some business cards. His employer started recommending him to his friends, and Millan's client list grew, as well as his own pack of dogs. Millan freely admits that he was never licensed, and was just "that Mexican guy who has a magical way with dogs." Via word of mouth though, in 1994 he came to the attention of celebrities Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith (who Millan cited as being responsible dog owners), who began recommending Millan to many other celebrities, and also mentored him in other ways, helping to improve his English and becoming good friends.

As his linguistic skills grew, Millan worked on improving his own education, reading books about dog psychology and animal behavior. He particularly cites two books as major reinforcing influences: Dr. Bruge Fogle's The Dog's Mind, and Dog Psychology by Leon F. Whitney, DVM.

By word of mouth, Millan's fame continued to grow, and he was able to found his own Dog Psychology Center, a two-acre facility in South Los Angeles with six employees, whose purpose is to rehabilitate dogs. He keeps a pack of 30 to 40 "unadoptable" and abandoned dogs there, and is president of his own company, Cesar Millan, Inc. He is also a member of the International Association of Canine Professionals, an organization open to anyone working in the dog industry.

Millan now has a green card and is applying for U.S. citizenship. In 2002, after a profile in the Los Angeles Times, he received many offers from Hollywood producers, and chose the MPH Entertainment Group, who developed the show Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan, and pitched it to the National Geographic Channel, where it became their #1 show within its first season. Millan wrote a book that came out concurrent with the second season, and the book went to #1 on the national bestseller lists.

He presently lives in Inglewood with his American wife, Ilusion Wilson Millan, and his sons, Andre (b.1995) and Calvin (b. 2001). He credits his wife with keeping him grounded, and keeping their marriage stable by setting "rules, boundaries, and limitations."

Media fame

Millan has been featured on the Oprah program, and was portrayed in a tenth season episode of the Comedy Central animated series South Park (entitled "Tsst") that aired on May 3, 2006. In the episode, Cesar is hired to train Eric Cartman to behave.

Awards

In 2005, the National Humane Society Genesis Award Committee presented Millan with a Special Commendation, for his work in rehabilitating animals.

Criticism and controversy

Some professional trainers and behaviorists claim that Millan's methods are inhumane and "heavy-handed", referring to the use of alpha roles that are discussed in his book, and techniques such as pulling dogs off the ground by tugging on their leash. * Critics state that Millan's training methods focus on dominance theory, and positive punishment and negative reinforcement to suppress problem behaviors, without first considering that there might be other medical factors at work which are influencing a "problem" dog's behavior. In addition, dominance theory is, in and of itself, controversial, and is rejected by some animal behaviorists who study canine behavior. It has also been pointed out that though Millan is referred to as an animal behaviorist, that this is a casual use of the term, as he is not certified by The Animal Behavior Society, the professionally recognized certification organization for applied animal behaviorists.

On April 28, 2006, Millan's original publicist, Makeda Smith of Jazzmyne Public Relations and her partner, Foster Corder of Daughters 2 Feed Films, filed a lawsuit against Millan requesting compensation for damages in excess of five million dollars for alleged copyright infringement, breach of contract and breach of confidential relationship. The National Geographic Channel, MPH Entertainment, Inc and Emery/Sumner Productions, LLC are also defendants named in the complaint. Smith alleges that Millan has completely forsaken her after several years of utilizing her expertise to introduce and position him within industry, professional and media circles, nationally and internationally, without any compensation. **

On May 5th, 2006, a television producer for the TV series 8 Simple Rules also filed a lawsuit against Millan, claiming that his labrador retriever had been seriously injured while at Millan's training facility during an exercise routine on a treadmill.*. National Geographic released a statement that Millan was not present at the facility at the time of the alleged incident.

Works

Book

  • Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems, Cesar Millan, Melissa Jo Peltier, 2006. ISBN 0307337332

DVDs

  • People Training for Dogs, DVD. Cesar shares his experience and wisdom from a lifetime of working with dogs and explains how his methods work. (This is not a training video)
  • Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan - The Complete First Season, DVD, 2006, ASIN B000EGDALQ
  • The Dog Whisperer: Beginning and Intermediate Dog Training, DVD

See also

References & external links

Dog-related professions and professionals | Television personalities | Living people | Mexican people | People from Culiacán | 1969 births

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Cesar Millan".

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