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Cesar Millan and his four-legged friends will come to the Westhampton Beach PAC on July 24.[/caption]
By Michelle Trauring
No two days in Cesar Millan’s life are the same.
At any given time, the celebrity dog behaviorist could be on the set of his National Geographic Channel show, “Cesar 911,” or even “Mutt & Stuff,” starring his youngest son, Calvin, on Nickelodeon’s Nick Jr.
He could be found in one of the gardens at his Dog Psychology Center in southern California—an endeavor that first began as Mr. Milan struggled to break into his profession—teaching his students or taking an urgent call from someone with a dog problem, he said during a recent interview.
“I don’t get enough alone time, and that’s what I like about the Hamptons,” he said, noting he has spent some summers with friends on the East End. “I get to relax.”
But his time here on Sunday won’t be a day off—which he doesn’t seem to mind too much. He will visit the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center for a lesson on his methodology, philosophy and training secrets alongside his famous four-legged companion, Junior, as well as a number of dogs from the Southampton Animal Shelter.
“[The audience] can expect to learn a lot, and to laugh a lot, because I love to teach with humor. And I do demonstrate my techniques,” he said. “Although I bring my own dogs, we’ve been doing a great thing on this tour. We find local shelter dogs that need to be rescued, and I work with the shelter staff during the show to teach them how to make these dogs better behaved and more adoptable once they’re back in the shelter.
“I love this part because it helps to dispel a lot of negative myths about shelter dogs: ‘they were dumped because they’re badly behaved,’ ‘they can’t be rehabilitated,’ ‘they’re damaged.’ None of this is true, and I’m going to prove that live on stage.”
He first recognized canine dynamics as a young child watching a pack of working dogs in Mexico. It suited him, he said. He was a rebellious boy who hated homework and studying. He was a small hustler, always looking for ways to make money working odd jobs. His family was very poor, so instead of chasing after girls and participating in other social activities, he said he amused himself by playing with dogs.
It became clear to him very early on that his future was intertwined with dogs—he strived to be the best dog trainer in the world—and right after Christmas 1990, the then-21-year-old decided to pursue his dream. He jumped the border from Mexico into the United States, an endeavor that took him two weeks to accomplish.
“Yes, it took several attempts to cross the border. I was scared and I got caught at least twice and sent back,” he said. “But I never gave up. Once I crossed into San Diego, I slept under a freeway pass until I could find work grooming dogs at a local groomer. The store owner gave me $40 for my first grooming job and I gave her $20 back because I thought it was too much to pay me. I lived on $1 hot dogs and Coke at 7-Eleven.”
He hitched rides from San Diego to Los Angeles and took on every job that crossed his path, he said, from washing cars to sweeping parking lots. Then, his life changed.
All it took was one picture—a shot of Mr. Millan rollerblading with 30 dogs that ran in the L.A. Times in 2002. He would soon become the original “Dog Whisperer” on “The Dog Whisperer With Cesar Millan,” and co-author half a dozen books, as well as star in his current show, “Cesar 911.”
And he would do it all with his most beloved dog, Daddy, by his side. When he died in 2010, it made headlines.
But Daddy left Mr. Millan a gift behind in the form of Junior.
“It was near the end of Daddy’s life. He was 15 and slowing down, and then I heard that a friend’s pit bull had just had a litter,” he recalled. “I took Daddy with me, and he’s the one who picked Junior out of the bunch, overruling several of my suggestions, by the way. Daddy was the one who actually taught Junior everything early on, except for the housebreaking part. He left that one to me.
“Junior’s become my right-hand dog since that time, and he’s with me on the road and on stage whenever possible,” he continued. “He’s not quite up to Daddy’s speed. Daddy never made a mistake and always knew the right thing to do, while Junior does have his moments where I have to correct him and redirect him. But he’s getting better, and we do have a very strong relationship of mutual trust and respect. I still miss Daddy, of course, and I’m going to miss him every day for the rest of my life.”
The bond between humans and dogs is an absolute force, Mr. Millan said, one that is arguably unparalleled.
“I think it’s because dogs are so in tune with our energy. They know more about us than we know about ourselves,” he said. “They also don’t judge us, but accept us for who we are. It doesn’t matter to a dog if you’re rich or poor, young or old, Christian or Muslim, or anything else. They also bring out empathy in us, and can have an incredibly calming effect. When a dog comes into a room, all the people notice instantly, and any tension that existed seems to vanish.
“Of course, there are thousands of years of history and domestication between dogs and humans behind that,” he continued. “Ultimately, I think a lot of the bond comes from the simple fact that the two species have been learning how to communicate with and understand each other for so long.”
At his core, Mr. Millan does not consider himself to be a dog trainer—for no other reason other than that he doesn’t think of what he does as training them. He sees it as earning their trust.
“Dogs will only follow stable energy, and this is how all leaders gain the trust of the pack: by being balanced, calm and assertive,” he said. “In order to do it, you have to understand dog psychology and how it’s different than human psychology. You can’t gain a dog’s trust intellectually. You have to do it instinctually. But once a dog trusts you, it will respect your leadership and give you its loyalty, so you don’t need to train it to do specific ‘tricks.’ That dog is already looking for you to let it know what to do.”
He also doesn’t see them like his children, which many people do worldwide, though it can seem particularly overboard in the United States. One reason for this that he said he’s heard is that when people moved from cities to the suburbs after World War II, they could have dogs as indoor pets.
“So we started to treat them more like human children,” he said. “Another theory is that the obsession didn’t really begin until the 1980s, as people started having children later and adopted dogs as substitutes. I wouldn’t say that people in the U.S. are more obsessed than everywhere else, although they can go overboard when it comes to treating their dogs like kids instead of pets. I’ve seen people with dogs in purses or strollers, and there are even dog ‘weddings.’
“That’s a bit much,” he continued. “And it really gets away from the most important thing we can do: let our dogs be dogs.”
Cesar Millan will perform “Training Rescue Dogs Live On Stage” on Sunday, July 24, at 7:30 p.m. at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets range from $95 to $200. For more information, call (631) 288-1500, or visit whbpac.org.
