Over the last decade, Cesar Millan has cranked out high-rated TV shows and bestselling books, catered to countless celebrity clients, and become the world’s first rock star dog trainer.
But there’s a reason the 44-year-old Mexican native, who rose to fame on the National Geographic Channel series “Dog Whisperer,” feels the compulsion to keep churning out canine-training products and messages with the zeal of an overcaffeinated terrier.
“It’s called being born in poverty,” Millan said over the phone from Los Angeles this week. “When you’re born poor and you crave for achieving, that becomes your mentality at an early age. It’s why I have such a strong drive to keep moving forward.”
Or as Millan likes to say while rehabbing aggressive and fearful pooches: It’s all about calm, assertive energy.
His one-man brand is built not only on his raft of behavioral techniques, but also his smiling, unerring confidence.
He’s lent his image and voice to TV series like “The Dog Whisperer,” “Leader of the Pack” and “Cesar 911,” but also a half-dozen books, a bimonthly magazine (“Cesar’s Way,” which features Millan on the cover of every issue), DVDs and CDs, dog supplies, paid clinics and even endorsement deals.
So what else is left to do?
A live theater tour, of course.
“The live experience is impossible to imitate on TV,” he said of “Cesar Millan Live!” which comes to the Paramount Theatre on March 28. “When it’s live and everything is happening in front of you, you can become a believer. People know (TV shows) can be edited, and it can be many months before they actually air an episode. It makes people not trust 100 percent the process.
“But in order for dogs to transform, to change their bad behavior, the human has to believe that he can actually do it. And live, I bring concepts and a frame of mind that on TV would be too preachy.”
Millan’s stage show consists of one-half lecture and one-half demonstration with local shelter dogs, in which he uses his pack-leader training techniques to modify negative behaviors.
“I love to use shelter dogs because some people believe there’s something wrong with these dogs. They never interpret it as a human giving up on the dog.”
Millan’s simplistic, rule-based approach draws heavily from dominance theory and overall places more emphasis on exercise and discipline than affection.
It’s his world. The dogs just live in it.
It’s also an approach many dog trainers moved on from years ago, with some in the media even dubbing it “cruel” and “barbaric,” since it occasionally involves electric shocks, spike collars and “touching” (or hitting, as critics call it).
Dr. Nicholas Dodman, the head of Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, once characterized Millan’s technique as “flooding and punishment” that “sets dog training back 20 years.” And with Americans spending $53 billion annually on their pets, according to the American Pet Products Association, critics say the problem is only getting worse.
“I wish he would understand where behavioral science really is these days,” said Laura McGaughey, a certified Denver-area dog trainer and owner of Delightful Doggies. “Even the founder of dominance theory has recanted his stance on it.”
McGaughey said that both science and her experience support the fact that dogs learn primarily through association, and that positive reinforcement has a more lasting effect when used correctly.
“It’s good television and it’s working for him, but if you do a little research you see there has been a lot of fallout from his techniques,” she said. “It’s positive reinforcement for him to be getting paid a lot of money to do this.”
Millan, when asked about his effectiveness and compassion, bit back.
“What they’re not understanding is that I prepare people. Energy is the way we communicate. It’s not by holding a leash or the way you go and touch a dog. These people don’t realize I’m actually helping the world know how to behave around dogs.”
Even some of Millan’s critics acknowledge he has furthered the conversation about training methods and helped create an environment in which pet overpopulation and breed-specific phobias are front-and-center topics.
Millan looks to culture-changers like Steve Jobs and Gandhi as role models, so he was unsurprisingly angry when asked about the half dozen or so Front Range cities — including Denver, Aurora and Commerce City — that have banned one of his favorite breeds: the pit bull.
“Can you imagine if dogs were like ‘Planet of Apes,’ and on this dog planet they said, ‘Well, we’re going to abandon this kind of people. They’re really bad and lazy and we’re going to euthanize them.’ It doesn’t make any sense when a city says it loves dogs and does this!”
His nonprofit Millan Foundation, based in North Hollywood, supports spaying and neutering programs and doles out grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 to organizations that rescue abused and neglected animals.
For him, navigating the media and public relations landscape is just another facet of a vigorously focused, self-made career.
“There’s always controversy when people are beginning their work,” he said. “For me, some of the controversy was that I was an illegal from Mexico, so I know how to swim around and understand the reasons why people do this.
“But at the end of the day, I’m a one-of-a-kind immigrant.”
Cesar Millan “Live!” Dog training lecture and stage show. 8 p.m. March 28 at the Paramount Theatre, 1621 Glenarm Place. Tickets, $39-$95, available at 866-461-6556 or altitudetickets.com.
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642, jwenzel@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johnwenzel
