Photo by Kevin A. Roberts
The pack strides into St. Louis Magazine’s conference room: celebrated dog behaviorist Cesar Millan; his son Andre; Millan’s right-hand dog, Junior, a silvery-gray pit bull; and Benson, a teacup Pomeranian. All four have the same bearing: quiet, dignified, self-possessed. We talk about Millan’s new show, Dog Nation (which premieres on Nat Geo WILD this month). St. Louis is one of the first cities featured, thanks to the work of the Missouri Alliance for Animal Legislation, which has championed laws that forced more than half of the state’s 2,000 puppy mills out of business and mandated veterinary care in the remaining 800—and Stray Rescue of St. Louis. Then a flurry of movement outside the room’s glass doors catches my eye. Dog-loving staffers are gathering in the hall, cooing at the pups and nudging one other, grinning. Mortified, I stare down at the first paragraph of my background notes:
"People are soft and kissy with dogs. That is why dogs take over.”—Cesar Millan in The New York Times Magazine
“We naturally want to run right up to a new dog, talk to him, look him in the eye and immediately pet him…To a dog, this is a very rude approach.”—Millan on his website
Naturally, Millan—who built his reputation on his calm, focused confidence—is ignoring the soft-and-kissy spectators, but he does address the phenomenon when I ask:
What do we do wrong in our interactions with dogs? We give them too much excitement, because we think an excited dog is a happy dog. Junior travels with me—first class—and when people see him at the airport being calm, they say, “Oh, why is he sad?” I say, “No, he is calm.” Humans are not calm at the airport.
But all those cute spins and tail wags—why is excitement bad for a dog? [He walks over to the conference room’s light switch and flips it, darkening the room.] This is off. This is you resting. [He flips it on again.] This is you working. All animals need an excited life as much as they need a calm life. Most people only want to have an excited life with a dog. [He leaves the room and comes back in, squealing, “Oh my God! Baby!”] This is what they do. And yet when visitors come, they don’t want the dog to jump or get excited at the doorbell. The human unconsciously contradicts himself.
So what should we do the minute we come home? No touch, no talk, no eye contact. Be a source of calm before you become a source of excitement. Then, when the dog is calm, give affection.
Are we perhaps too hungry for a dog’s unconditional love? That’s kind of hypocritical. Are dogs humans, or dogs? [I stay silent, figuring that this is rhetorical.] I’m asking you a question.
Er…dogs. Dogs love you as who you are. Humans love dogs as humans—“I want you to be my baby”—so the unconditional part only works one way.
You mean we’re just being selfish? [He shrugs.] It’s a modern world way of thinking. Dogs in Third World countries are skinny, but they don’t have psychological problems. Dogs in America are chunky, and I get to have a TV show. Why do dogs who live in a modern world need Prozac? People in Third World countries, they sleep very well. Their worries are different. The modern world lives fast and forgets about the simple things.
And dogs’ needs are simpler than ours. You have three kinds of needs: physical, mental, and emotional. When you go to work, you use your body and mind, and they ask you to leave your emotions aside, so that part is still missing. People use the dog to fulfill that empty spot, even if they live with another person, because a lot of times humans are not available for that reciprocal love, so the dog is used. Nothing wrong with that—except a dog also has physical, mental, and emotional needs. Most dogs in this country only get affection. Is affection enough? No.
[He goes to the whiteboard and draws two circles. Half of the first circle, he labels “Body (exercise).” One-fourth he labels “Mind (work, challenge, discipline),” and the other fourth is “Heart (affection).”] This is what a dog needs. [In the second circle, he draws the same dividing lines, then scrawls a big A in every section.] If you only give affection, you are not really loving your dog.
You’ve said dogs in America suffer from lack of exercise—isn’t running around a big back yard enough? What does a dog do in a back yard? He makes circles; he paces. It’s like a zoo. Dogs need to be walked. It is very important for a dog to get out of the den—the house—and go to a destination, create hunger and thirst, come back to the den and relax, get food and water and affection.
I’m also guessing we tolerate bad behavior too readily. Some dogs jump on a table, steal food—they are not being aggressive; they are just being incredibly disrespectful. Only one person will tolerate that: the person who says, “Oh, I don’t want to hurt his spirit.” You know how many clients I’ve had who haven’t had a guest in their home in years?
What do dogs pick up from us? They know when you are afraid, when you are anxious. All animals know when you are not stable. Most people are clear when it comes to a horse—they know you can’t ride if you are fearful—but you shouldn’t walk a dog if you are fearful, either. A lot more people get bitten by dogs than kicked by horses. With a horse, people use common sense. With dogs, we want to humanize them, because dogs are the only species that lives in our intimate space.
What about cats? A cat, No. 1, doesn’t naturally want to follow. You will never swim with a cat; you will never do search and rescue. A cat will never find bombs. He will maintain himself from a distance. For a dog, it’s part of his DNA to be part of your family.
Have you ever told a dog owner, “Forget it. Get a cat”? Yes. Dogs are always ready to go back to normal, but humans do not always love to change. The dog has no chance with that human.
What else do dogs pick up? Say the kids want a dog, but Mom knows they’re not ready yet, but Dad wants to be the cool dad. They get the dog, but there was no agreement. The dog will sense that there is no healthy communication, and there is some resentment.
Photo by Jason Winkeler, National Geographic/Mark Thiessen
What should people learn before they adopt a dog? No. 1, before you get a dog, I think you should enter into fostering dogs. You need to understand energies—low, medium, high. Never get a dog that is higher energy than you are. You saw the movie Marley & Me? Perfect example of two journalists choosing the wrong dog. Most of those dogs don’t get a movie; they get put down, because they have “destructive behavior issues.”
Fostering is a test drive. Check out small, medium, and large sizes. You can foster pups or adolescents or seniors. Definitely seniors are better for beginners. The only downfall is the medical issues. An adolescent adult dog, you have to think agility, activities—like, when my kids were getting older, I had to think about soccer and other sports. You redirect that energy.
You said to experience small, medium, and large dogs. Is it true that the small ones are more nervous and yappy and the big ones are couch potatoes indoors? No, that’s the same thing as stereotyping. One day, just go study how people react to little dogs. You can raise a calm little dog, but instead, people [he squeaks a silly, adoring, utterly unconvincing correction]. When a little dog does something wrong, people think it’s funny.
Sometimes they’ll just scoop the dog up into their arms, I’ve noticed, rather than correct her. Yes, and if the same behavior is done by a mastiff, they do something about it. Instead of the human aiming for balance, he has unconsciously created instability. He tells the puppy, “You control the house. I will do whatever you say, because you are cute. But once you are older, I’m going to get upset and fearful—but I won’t do anything about it.”
Was that what happened with Oprah Winfrey? “This is Sophie. She’s a cocker spaniel. She’s my daughter.” This is Oprah, the most influential woman on this earth, talking to me. And I’m about to tell her, “Let’s see it in a different perspective.” Sophie bit dogs for 11 years. Oprah kept Sophie separated from her golden retrievers because she’d attack them. Oprah had fear, and her energy became weaker, so Sophie felt the need to protect. When you see Oprah on TV, you see a calm, assertive woman. But Oprah was afraid Sophie would misbehave. She went from past to future: Sophie bit somebody yesterday; therefore she will bite someone today. Me, as a person who lives in the moment, I said, “Let’s see how the dog feels today.” You have to pay attention to your emotions, because dogs react to emotions. The mind says, “Don’t bite,” but the emotion is fear. Dogs come to the emotion, not to your mind.
You make it all seem so obvious. Sometimes you don’t need dog training. Sometimes you just need common sense. Somebody asked a Japanese guy, “Why are you all so smart?” He said, “We are not smart; we are disciplined.” Discipline will overcome smart. In America, when you talk about disciplining a dog, people think punishment. It’s when your dog doesn’t have discipline that you are punishing him. Bad behavior is an outcome of what the dog is missing: exercise, rules, bounds, and limitations. I go back and give him what he needs.
What’s the key to bringing a new dog into your home? You need to master calmness. That’s your foundation. Every time the dog misbehaves, you want to go back to that. If this guy [he puts a hand on Andre’s shoulder] doesn’t know how to practice calmness, how can he ever know how to move away from fear or anger? America is about having the kids learn to be creative, to be leaders, and then to listen to you. The priorities are different. In a Third World country, respect is first.
I love the way you didn’t rush to speak when you adopted Junior; you let him get used to you first. But that is speaking. It’s just speaking with silence. We have to see calmness as a way of communicating. If we think the only way to communicate with an animal is verbal, we are missing or disrespecting another way.
How can people motivate their dogs? Through food, and the other way is through playing, because not all dogs are food motivated. Food and toys are your two biggest motivators outside yourself. But the dog should be motivated to work for you without food or toys. That’s called respect. Do you think natives have food and toys? They can’t afford it. But the dog does things for them. How do indigenous peoples in the Amazons have an amazing relationship with dogs when they don’t use food or clickers or harnesses?
How much of a dog’s temperament corresponds to breed? Nothing. I have heard stories where a Rottweiler is controlled by a cat.
Are mutts the best dogs, or is that reverse snobbery? They are, but it’s just because people don’t focus on the breed. Their research is dog-related, not “We have a German shepherd.” Talking about breed is just like talking about a person’s cultural background. I am Mexican, but I’m also human. What makes me a good member of society is that I behave in a balanced way. Kindness doesn’t come from race; it comes from being human. It’s not the breed that is hurting you; it’s that you have hurt the dog.
Photo by Jason Winkeler, National Geographic/Mark Thiessen
You were nicknamed Dog Boy as a kid in Mexico because you spent so much time observing packs of wild dogs. What did you notice? It was very common to see large groups of dogs, cows, donkeys, goats, and chickens. When my parents moved to the city because there was no education near our farm, I saw dogs being neglected, tied up, kept on roofs to protect people. The city creates distrust. People didn’t have the empathy and compassion Americans have for dogs—which we can still do a little bit better. But one thing that was very clear for us was, the dog has to work. We can’t have a dog that is on welfare. On the farm, the dog never had a collar or a leash. My grandfather, my father, myself, and our pack of eight dogs—all mutts, by the way—were herding the cattle.
We’ve moved dogs away from the work they were bred to do. How can we give a nonworking dog a sense of purpose? The cheapest way is letting him wear a backpack when you walk him. And make sure the dog is next to you, not out in front. Handicapped people make dogs normal, and normal people make dogs handicapped. That’s because with a handicapped person, the dog has a purpose. That relationship is not based solely on affection; it’s also based on trust and respect. My clients don’t trust their dogs. They won’t walk with them off lead.
What’s the biggest lesson we need to learn with dogs? How to communicate. This is how they do it. [Not meeting my eyes, he lets his eyes glance at my face and shoulders, moving his neck back and forward.] This is how we do it. [Suddenly he yells] Sit. Sit. Sit! Sit, stay. No! Leave it! Hey. Hey. Hey! [He claps frantically.] So you get an unstable dog. When you are calm, you are communicating their way.
Are we too wordy for dogs? [He nods.] It comes from the parrots and the gorillas. People say, “Oh, this parrot knows 300 words!” So what? A gorilla, OK, he will do all this, but would he rather be in the jungle, speaking his own language? If you leave dogs to roam, they will never do sit, down, stay, but they will 100 percent understand each other. How? By fulfilling each other’s needs.
Why do dogs play such a huge role in our lives? A dog gives you access to instincts, access to healthy emotions, access to spirituality. What a dog doesn’t give you is access to intellect. My clients are Harvard graduated, but they can’t walk a Chihuahua. They say, “My dog is my baby, but he wants to kill other dogs.” Or “My dog is my soulmate, but he doesn’t like my husband.” Or “My dog is very smart, but he won’t come when I call him.” If they think smart, they think intellectual. If they think spiritual, they think soulmate. If they think emotion, they think baby. They don’t have a healthy relationship.
They’re trying to pretend that the dog thinks and feels the way they do. And a dog does not rationalize. A dog keeps you in touch with instinct, emotion, spirituality. But if you treat a dog as a human, you immediately annihilate all that. He’s not a human. Why would he want to be a human? We pollute the world! We are the only species willing to lie to ourselves. We are the only species that follows unstable pack leaders.
Yeah, why do we do that? Because our priorities are wealth, fame, power, ego. Animals don’t care about any of that. So why are humans so eager to change a dog? Making a dog a baby, that’s more for you. And that’s OK, as long as you meet their needs first.
When you came to the States and worked as a groomer, did you already know that you had the power to calm dogs? No! That’s why I came to America, because I thought I didn’t know anything! I thought every dog in America was Lassie or Rin Tin Tin. And in every movie we watch in Mexico, Americans save the world.
I’m so sorry. That’s OK. That’s good marketing.
What changes have you seen in attitudes toward dogs since you came in 1990? Now people say, “Cesar, I know it’s me.” And people who don’t have dogs say, “I love what you do: You are training the people.” The biggest conversation among people before I came was to “train” a dog. Now I train people to rehabilitate dogs. Everybody wants a family dog, but eventually the family gets rid of the dog—how is that love? You have to change your perspective. Dogs don’t want to make your life miserable.
What’s key to the canine future? Whoever is molding things should focus on breeding dogs with lower energy, because people are becoming less physically active. If you can manufacture a breed to have specific abilities, you can also breed for calmness. That’s what they did with the Cavalier King Charles spaniels. They were bred to warm up the babies of the royal family, and they had to be as calm as a doormat.
How do we eradicate puppy mills? Repetition. We have to bring it into people’s minds more often. Even though dogs are considered family members now, we are not really protecting them. Dog Nation means the whole entire nation. Let’s really be there for the dog. Let’s forget about politics, religion, socioeconomics, gender, all of that, and let’s just agree that we can make a difference.
[As the interview draws to a close, the energy falling, Junior, who’s been lying quietly at Millan’s feet, gives a little groan.] Translation? Oh, he’s bored.
