Dog expert or torturer?

  • Joerg Ratzsch
  • India
  • Jul 11, 2014

 

 

 

His clients included some of the biggest names in Hollywood - Jennifer Aniston, Charlize Theron, Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes; or perhaps, more accurately, their dogs. Cesar Millan has adopted the title of ‘dog whisperer’, to explain his skill in taming badly behaved mutts. He is the ‘go-to’ man when your canine is so disobedient and so dysfunctional that you’re desperate and will pay anything to get it to behave. To such people he is a godsend; but to certain animal-rights advocates and some of his rival dog trainers, his methods border on ‘torture’. While many would like to stop him, his fans swear by his methods of recovering control over a dog that imagines it has become the boss. Millan is a star in the United States. He had a successful reality-TV show from 2004 to 2012, called Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan. He often goes on tour with his dogs, in order to demonstrate to owners the proper way of handling a pesky pooch. His stated objective is that dogs, being tribal animals, must learn to recognise their owner as the ‘leader of the pack’ and therefore obey him. The 44-year-old admits he has no formal qualification in dog training.  “Some people say I have a gift,” he tells dpa in Berlin, while touring his show through Germany. 

 

In 1990, then 21 years old, he slipped illegally from Mexico into California and then held a series of jobs - veterinary assistant, dog trainer and dog groomer. These jobs brought him into contact with Hollywood film stars, and thus began his rise to fame. US citizenship and a TV audience of millions followed…plus best-selling books. He is now the man the US media consults when it has a dog question and needs an expert view. It’s one of those rags-to-riches stories that are the fabric of the American way of life. Millan preaches to dog owners that they must not only love their animal but also guide it. “The human must always present himself or herself as the leader of the pack - calm but determined. You must create a balanced being out of the dog, by presenting it with challenges - including lots of exercise, spiritual stimulation and games. What you’re trying to achieve is a condition of calm submission,” he says, often using terms like ‘energy’ and ‘communication’. “We talk with dogs as if they are people,” he complains. “Instead, one should take a cue from how dogs naturally deal with each other. From the very first contact there should always be a quiet, wait-and-see atmosphere,” he adds. Millan sets out three basic rules, which can also help people who are afraid of dogs: ‘No words, no eye contact and no touching’. “Let the dog come to you first. It must of its own accord grant me its trust,” he says. It is noticeable how Millan seems calm even while directly dealing with dogs that are aggressive and snapping their teeth. So, how many times has he been bitten? “I don’t keep count. And when it has happened, it has been my mistake: bad timing,” says he. However, he also plays rough with ‘problem’ dogs - and this is where his critics go livid with anger. “Cesar Millan’s methods are based on punishment, domination, subjugation, pressure and threats,” intones Birgitt Thiesmann, from a German animal protection society, Vier Pfoten (Four Paws). And Udo Kopernik of the German Canine Association (VDH) says, “In no way do his methods correspond to today’s scientific knowledge.” VDH accuses Millan of sometimes using ‘violence-prone’ techniques such as blows, kicks, an extremely tight neckband (and) electrical shocks. Such methods are banned under German animal protection laws. The VDH cites one scene from the TV series, in which Millan kicks a dog on its side because the animal has just bit his hand. There is another episode where Millan forces an aggressive dog onto its side, on the ground, and holds it there until the dog stops twisting and resisting. Millan calls this method a ‘relaxing’ of the dog.  Critics have demanded that this scene be taken off YouTube. Millan can only shake his head at the critics. “There are 300 episodes of Dog Whisperer and they pick out three of them. All the others, where I go in-line skating and running with the dogs, when I reward them and pet them, (the critics) don’t watch,” he says. He feels misunderstood by his critics. “They don’t understand who Cesar Millan really is. I am the biggest dog fan on this planet!”υ


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