Dog trainers, no matter their approach to working with dogs, owe a lot to Cesar Millan. He was one of the first people who showed, in just an hour TV program, that an out of control dog CAN change. Everyday people who were struggling with their dog, or who had accepted that their dog had an unresolvable issue, suddenly saw that anything was possible.
Because of that, there were suddenly loads of people looking to spend money on their own Dog Whisperers to help solve their dog’s problems. The culture shifted from seeing dogs with issues as “bad apples” that weren’t fit for the world, to struggling, living beings in need of help.
However, there’s a flip side to the success of the Dog Whisperer TV show – people became used to seeing dog problems solved in an hour by a dog Superman. This in spite of the fact that there were countless episodes where Cesar got bit, got others bit, the owners ended up failing, or he would take particularly difficult dogs to his Dog Psychology Center (sometimes for months) for a lengthy rehabilitation under the eye of multiple professional trainers in the best facilities on Earth.
People still watch that program and assume dog trainers are magic - even if Cesar tells them specifically that rehabilitating a dog is not magic. I even recall watching skeptical people on the show waiting to see Cesar fail the way people watch a magician hoping to catch the sleight of hand or that the illusion somehow fails.
Because of that, there were suddenly loads of people looking to spend money on their own Dog Whisperers to help solve their dog’s problems. The culture shifted from seeing dogs with issues as “bad apples” that weren’t fit for the world, to struggling, living beings in need of help.
However, there’s a flip side to the success of the Dog Whisperer TV show – people became used to seeing dog problems solved in an hour by a dog Superman. This in spite of the fact that there were countless episodes where Cesar got bit, got others bit, the owners ended up failing, or he would take particularly difficult dogs to his Dog Psychology Center (sometimes for months) for a lengthy rehabilitation under the eye of multiple professional trainers in the best facilities on Earth.
People still watch that program and assume dog trainers are magic - even if Cesar tells them specifically that rehabilitating a dog is not magic. I even recall watching skeptical people on the show waiting to see Cesar fail the way people watch a magician hoping to catch the sleight of hand or that the illusion somehow fails.
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