E-mail a friendCesar Millan
airdate December 10, 2007
With an uncanny gift for communicating with canines, Cesar Millan has been called "a Dr. Phil for dogs." He captured the national spotlight with his National Geographic Channel series, Dog Whisperer, and now has a star-studded client list. Born and raised in Mexico, Millan went to Hollywood to follow his dream of being a dog trainer. Once there, he changed his career goal to that of rehabilitating troubled dogs. His new book, Be the Pack Leader, is a follow-up to his best-selling Cesar's Way.
Cesar Millan
Tavis: Cesar Millan is the host of National Geographic's popular series "The Dog Whisperer" and the author of the number one "New York Times" best seller, "Cesar's Way." His latest book is called "Be the Pack Leader: Use Cesar's Way to Transform Your Dog and Your Life." A special edition of "The Dog Whisperer" is airing December 23rd on the National Geographic channel. Here now, a scene from "The Dog Whisperer."
[Clip]
Tavis: Cesar, nice to have you on the program.
Cesar Millan: Thank you, man. Appreciate it.
Tavis: I should start by asking who is this lying at my feet?
Millan: His name is (unintelligible), he's a 14-year-old pit bull, yes. He helps me a lot, he's one of my - he helps also to raise my kids. I have a 13-year-old kid, and he helped me to raise him. Very important.
Tavis: When we think of pit bulls, honestly, we do not think of pit bulls lying in this kind of position, just kind of chilling out, just kind of - this really is a pit bull, huh?
Millan: Yeah. It's not the breed; it's the human behind the dog.
Tavis: Yeah?
Millan: Yeah. It's not a race thing; it's who's behind the kid. It's the same principle, yeah. It's not the breed. Aggression is not a breed thing; aggression is a state of mind. So Chihuahuas can also be aggressive, but the media is not going to blow it up the way they will blow a pit bull, yeah.
Tavis: Speaking of media, when we were watching the clip of the National Geographic special, I did not know that dogs, like humans, can get post-traumatic syndrome.
Millan: Stress.
Tavis: Stress syndrome, yeah.
Millan: The only time they develop issues is when they live with us. So post-traumatic syndrome is one of those symptoms that they can develop living with us, especially when we don't know how to create the balance back when a dog becomes nervous or fearful under a situation.
Tavis: I want to go in a second to talk about your background. Everybody knows you as The Dog Whisperer, they know the work that you do and "New York Times" best sellers. But your background is really fascinating. Before I go to your background, though, let me stay right quick with today's news, speaking of pit bulls.
Earlier today, Michael Vick was given 23 months, and so that's his punishment for his infractions, the illegalities he found himself caught up in. one of the stories that I've been dying to ask you about, to get your opinion on this, one of the stories, of course, one of the facets to that story, I should say, was for lack of a better phrase a cultural disconnect.
I do Black radio every day, talk to millions of people, and if I had one conversation I had countless conversations about this cultural disconnect, primarily for our radio show, between White folk and Black folk, about how White folk oftentimes will let dogs sleep with them, kiss them in the mouth. I was on a plane the other day and a woman went to the bathroom, and the dog just whined and cried until she came back.
And she violates all the rules, takes the dog out of the bag, puts the dog in her lap. I ain't cool with this, but I'm sitting next to her and I can't change seats and I'm not going to coach, so I stay right where I am, in my seat. But there's a disconnect, oftentimes, and in the Black community, not to say that everybody engages in the Michael Vick way of treating dogs, but there is this cultural disconnect between how dogs are treated in certain communities, not treated in other communities. What's your take on that?
Millan: I think education is important to all race. Definitely some people do treat dogs like humans first. Nothing wrong with loving a dog the way you would love a human, but he's animal, dog, breed, then name.
Tavis: Let me jump into your back story. It's interesting, and there are so many facets to it, but interesting back story of how you came to this country, much less became a star with bestselling books. Tell me your back story.
Millan: Well, I'm from Mexico. (Unintelligible) Mexico. When I was 13, I said, "I want to be the best dog trainer in the world."
Tavis: Thirteen.
Millan: Thirteen years old.
Tavis: What made you say that?
Millan: I always loved dogs, and my grandfather was really good. And in Mexico, you are allowed to walk dogs off-leash. So we always had packs of dogs following us, you know what I mean? There's no rules for that. But I was always very attracted to work in the animal world, and when I heard that dog training is actually a profession, I said I wanted to be the best dog trainer in the world. And that's when I started watching "Lassie" and "Rin-Tin-Tin," and find out that Hollywood and Disneyland existed. And I thought that that was a city.
Tavis: It is.
Millan: It is a city, (laughter) but it's not really what you learn. And so I realized that America needed a little common sense with their dogs, because America do practice a lot of intellectual activities, emotional activities, and spiritual activities, but they don't practice instinctual activities with dog, and that's something that I'm good at it. Practicing common sense with dogs. I can walk 50 dogs, no leash, and so that's something that you don't get to see in America often.
Tavis: And is there a secret to doing that for you, or can anybody - could I walk outside and walk 50 dogs without a leash?
Millan: If you have common sense, yeah.
Tavis: But what do you mean by that? I don't think I can walk outside and walk 50 dogs, Cesar, like you could.
Millan: Right. At this point, no, you need somebody to mentor you and connect you back to the sight of you. You are animal, species, human, race, name. So the animal in you have to come out to surface more than the human side of you. Because who you are in the animal world is energy, you follow? And then activities. That's what you are.
They don't know what you do for a living, and they don't know what your name is. So you have to really learn to project common sort of energy first. Most of the people, when they see few dogs, they get tense. You can't be pack leader that way. You can't practice that around animals, because they sense that right away.
Tavis: Right. What do you mean in this book by be the pack leader?
Millan: In a pack of dogs is formed the leader and the follower. In the culture in America, human is a follower, dog is a leader. This is why dogs control people's home, because the human is now practicing the pack leader position. Now, pack leader doesn't represent that you have to be angry or frustrated. It represents that you have to be in a calm, assertive state to lead a pack.
Tavis: How does this particular book build on the first one?
Millan: Well, this is more insights how to create this energy and how important it is to be the pack leader. The first one, it was an introduction from me to America, and the dog psychology in a more broad spectrum. This is more detail-oriented, about how to create calm, assertive energy, and also how can you also practice this energy in other areas of your life.
Tavis: That's the part that fascinates me, that there are lessons you believe that we can learn and apply to our own lives that comes courtesy of being a pet owner.
Millan: Animals. Pack-oriented animals. If you love horses, you can also be a good pack leader. You have to lead a horse. And so animals, as much as they can be teachers, they can be students or students teachers. To me, a dog is a reminder of stay in balance, live in the moment, honesty, integrity, loyalty.
You can get that from a dog, which is something that everybody wants from a human, not often you get it. But you can always get it from a dog if you follow the rules, which is exercise, discipline, then affection. A lot of people just like to give affection, affection, affection, and expect the dog to listen to them.
Tavis: Break those three things down, exercise, discipline, and affection.
Millan: Yeah. One thing that I learned from my grandfather is you can't work against Mother Nature, and so animals, they exercise, they follow pack leader, then they celebrate. So that's why I created exercise, discipline, affection. Honesty, integrity, loyalty.
Tavis: How would you explain, and you started to go down this road a moment ago, and I want to go a little deeper and have you unpack it a little bit more, how would you explain to a person who's never had a pet or doesn't get the pet thing, doesn't get the dog thing at all - there are folk like that watching right now who just don't get it. How would you explain to them the joy of being a pet owner? What it means to be?
Millan: Oh, God. To me? To me, as I tell my wife - I'm a husband and a dad - I have to have a dog next to me. It grounds me. It tells me the simplicity of life. It's easier to connect and gain that affection or love, or the existence of a spirituality; and so it represents the three very important worlds to me - the instinctual world, the emotional world, the spiritual world.
The intellectual world, they don't have a clue that we have Internet, you know what I mean? So that they don't care. But what they do care is the instinctual, the emotional, and the spiritual. So I'm capable to practice those three worlds just by having a pet. So in case that you don't have a human that you trust and respect, you can always have a dog or rescue a dog and practice that.
You need somebody with you, because you are a pack-oriented species. Human being is a pack-oriented species. At this point in our life, we're the only species that follow unstable pack leaders. Human. Only human.
Tavis: I could give you a long list of those people on that list.
Millan: That's right. (Laughter) So see, something to learn from dogs.
Tavis: Yeah, I see, I got you.
Millan: I got the (unintelligible). He liked that, he liked that.
Tavis: Did he like that one?
Millan: You like that? Yeah. It's good for America, it's good for America. He agrees with that. (Laughter)
Tavis: Did your wife always like animals, or hanging out with you she came to like animals, after you told her you had to have a dog beside you?
Millan: Well, I didn't just come with one dog; I came with 15 dogs (laughter) when we met.
Tavis: And she still took you.
Millan: Oh, yeah, she still took me, and it was just part of the deal. She was born and raised in America, so the concept of connecting with dogs was completely different than the way I connect with dogs. And so that took a little time for her to adjust, but with the wife, you give her as much time as you can. (Laughter) Honey, you can make all the mistakes in the world. I'm here to support you.
Tavis: Yeah, I got you.
Millan: I learned that in America. (Laughter)
Tavis: Cesar, learning things in America, and teaching us things from Mexico. Don't you love the global world that we live in? The new book by Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer, is "Be the Pack Leader: Use Cesar's Way to Transform Your Dog and Your Life." I don't know - I need to go learn about dogs myself, because I was looking I guess yesterday at the "New York Times" list, and I think I counted four or five books about dogs in the top 10. So if I want to get back on the list again, I'd better write me a dog book.
Millan: Yeah.
Tavis: Of course, I don't know anything about dogs, but.
Millan: Yeah, the best way you can learn is when you put yourself in a pack of dogs, which you can come to my center. I own 30 dogs and you can learn better hands-on than reading things. Reading things aware you, but once you're in there, then you get to feel and then you get to see the language and the whole communication. It's more real.
Tavis: Nice to have you here, Cesar.
Millan: Thank you, man.
Tavis: Good to meet you.
Millan: It's a pleasure.
Back to December 10, 2007