The Dog Whisperer (Cesar Millan)

[3/24/24] I noticed that Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan is now on Sling Freestream (as well as on Freevee earlier).  Even better, most of the episode are available On Demand.  For some reason, there are actually 3 different Dog Whisperers to add to the Watchlist.   Right now, there are 98 episodes + 14 episodes + 65 episodes for a total of 177 episodes.  There were a total of 162 episodes.  So there must be some overlap.

[12/1/23]  Earlier this year (I noticed it on 5/31/23), Dog Whisperer was pulled from iTunes, meaning you could no longer purchase the episodes from them.  Itunes was the only place that was offering all the seasons of Dog Whisperer, though Amazon had some seasons available.  Now the only episode I see remaining for sale is one episode on Amazon.  This had been the only way to get seasons 6-9 and the second half of season 5.  The first four seasons and first half of season 5 are still available on DVD.   I bought seasons 1, 5, 6 on iTunes previously, so I'm missing seasons 7, 8, 9.

Not sure why it was pulled, but I read later the Cineverse secured has the rights and was supposed to launch an AVOD channel.  I found the article on 9/26/23, but the release is dated 8/16/23.  I installed the Cineverse app, but no sign of Dog Whisperer.

This morning, I took a look at the Cineverse app and Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan was there!  It shows on the top ribbon of channels, but when I click on it, it gets stuck on a spinning circle.

But when you search for it, it comes up and all 9 seasons are there!  Sometimes the show is featured prominently at the top when you start up the app and it works if you access it from there also.

No AVOD channel yet, but I vastly prefer the episodes to be available On Demand anyway.

[6/10/20] Cesar has some tips for new dog owners
[8/22/18] Sling TV teams up with the Dog Whisperer
[7/4/18] Cesar Millan: Illegal Immigrant to American Dream
[7/3/18] Cesar broke the rule

[6/10/18] Audible for dogs

[12/23/16] Becoming a Pack Leader of Dogs and Donkeys

[9/30/16] I was checking out Cesar 911 and see that Amazon says it stars Cesar Millan and Jason Willinger.  Who's Jason Willinger?  He's the narrator.

Actually, I didn't like the narration of Cesar 911 as I preferred the narrator for Dog Whisperer.  (Who is apparently Phil Terrence.)  But now I've gotten use to Willinger.  (Though I still prefer Terrence since he was the first.)  Compare them here.

[8/27/16] Cesar's facebook post links to this 2002 Los Angeles Times article which might be the first article written about him.  I previously had found a 2004 article (see 10/9/09 below).  [OK, I'll finally update the date of this post.  It was originally posted on 10/24/05 9:24 PM.  It's now 7:17 AM]

[4/25/16] Cesar announces engagement to Jahira

[7/2/15] Calvin Millan gets his own show called Mutt & Stuff

[4/3/15] AOL Build: Cesar Millan

[4/2/15] Behind The Brand interview (full interview, see also 6/22/13 below)

[2/27/15] Cesar on WWHL

[2/26/15] How Dogs Taught Cesar Millan About Life

[2/24/15] Cesar Millan on the Steve Harvey Show

[8/5/14] Cesar sneaks up on Dr. Pol

[7/23/14] One of Cesar's client dogs bites neighbor

[4/6/14] Cesar tells his story to NPR

[2/16/14]  Remembering Daddy

[2/12/14] Cesar Millan Foundation hits seven years

[11/6/13] Andrea Arden reads cesarsway.com

[9/27/13] Cesar greets fans at LAX

[9/25/13] Emery Sumner Productions and Melissa Jo Peltier sue MPH Entertainment.  [Jim Milio in the good old days]

[9/17/13] Cesar filiming Love My Bully special

[8/31/13] Fergie and Josh Duhamel call on Cesar

[7/5/13] Cesar responds to criticisms from the Alan Titchmarsh show.

[7/5/13] Googling Dog Whisperer One Mean Tucker brings up this anti-Cesar thread at Shiba Inu forum.  Lots of negative energy here.  All I will say is that none (or very few) of the critics can do what Cesar can do.  Actually a lot of his criticized techniques you see on TV require a high level of physical skill and timing.  So it's probably less dangerous to do more conventional (positive-only) techniques.

[6/26/13] Junior's Tale

[6/22/13] Cesar Millan: Behind the Brand

[6/13/13] Cesar interview on Brian Williams Rock Center

[5/17/13] Tshss'ing Brian

[4/1/13] Leader of the Pachyderm

[3/15/13] Cesar on The View (Sherri Shepard's dog Ashley)

[2/9/13] Men's Journal article: Rescuing Cesar (long)

[1/29/13] Cesar and Shorty (photo)

[1/15/13] Cesar on omg! insider

[1/9/13] Cesar on Today Show (KL&Hoda)

[12/19/12] Cesar talks to The Big Issue

[11/24/12] Cesar gets his exercise

[11/19/12] You could do worse than Cesar

[11/18/12] Cesar hopes sharing struggles will help others

[11/16/12] Cesar bouncing back from suicide attempt

[11/16/12] Cesar Millan: The Real Story

[11/1/12] Cesar on Anderson Live

How Dogs See The World (CNN video, 11/19/10)

[10/31/12] Alan Titchmarsh interview with Cesar Millan

[10/17/12] Wall Street Journal interview: fear of dogs

[10/10/12] Cesar's new book: Short Guide to a Happy Dog

[10/9/12] Cesar on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (NGW biopic to air November 25, trailer)

[10/1/12] Cesar on Today Show (10/6/09)

[9/27/12] Cesar revisits his first home when he came to America

[9/14/12] Cesar on KTLA

[8/10/12] Cesar at the Playboy Mansion

Nat Geo Wild orders biopic Cesar Millan: Pack Leader

Dogs Keep Celebrities Humble

Cesar talks with Kelsey Grammar about divorce

[7/29/12] Cesar Millan on dogs around the world

[7/7/12] More back and forth on Cesar

[7/7/12] Tales from the Set, Part 4 by Bob Aniello

[7/4/12] This site has some Dog Whisperer videos online (many of which are hosted by gorillavid).  Probably illegally so they'll likely be taken down eventually.

[6/20/12] Tales from the Set by Todd Henderson

[6/11/12] Steve Dale wishes Cesar well

[6/10/12] Cesar and Mango (probably would have been a good Dog Whisperer episode -- depending on how he did it I guess)

[5/31/12] Cesar Millan in the movie Beethoven's Big Break (saved me from buying the DVD).

[5/26/12] Cesar talks with Indulge Magazine

[4/24/12] Who is Cesar Millan? (by Cesar Millan)

[3/6/12] Cesar on adopting the right dog

[1/16/12] The rise and fall of Cesar Millan (judging from the comments, what fall?)

[10/16/11] Cesar's aha moment

[8/1/11] Cesar on Michael Vick

[7/27/11] positive reinforcement techniques of Cesar Millan

[7/10/11] Cesar on his new book Cesar's Rules

[7/9/11] Zak George says Cesar Millan is yesterday's trainer

[6/7/11] Sessions with Cesar, the new online dog coaching course from Cesar Millan [via The Teachings of Cesar Millan]

[4/28/11] Cesar Millan on Jeopardy

[3/27/11] Cesar meets Mark Zuckerberg

[3/6/11] Cesar Millan, future governor of California?

[2/13/11] Found this old post (googling for Jennifer Ng) with Sophia Yin calling Cesar's methods "outdated" (compared to modern veterinary practice). (But the last six comments, including CJ Anderson's, make sense to me.)

[1/30/11] Good Dog, Bad Dog. Found via Kathy Sdao's twitter (found via dogbehavstudy found via PamelaDennison). She says the article did a lousy job (probably because it wasn't anti-Cesar enough).

[12/2/10] I was playing around with Digital TV for PC on Arlene's computer and saw there is a Cesar Channel. On the internet it's on livestream or use this shortcut.

[10/4/10] Cesar on CBS Sunday Morning [via Peggy and Willie]

[7/19/10] Ah here it is. Redeeming Rover, the 2002 article that started it all (according to The Ultimate Episode Guide).

[11/2/09] I was looking to reply to Sheri about how to avoid stress and thought about Cesar's 6 Steps For a Calm Walk. That was the episode with Tipper (Cesar's 6 Step Plan for Calm Walks). And came across this uk article. The six steps by the way are (1) Take A Deep Breath (2) Stay Calm (3) Set The Pace (4) Pick Up Speed (5) Face Your Obstacles (6) Get In The Zone

I also see a bunch of articles on Cesar's site (which are bound to be positive since they are on Cesar's site after all). They go back to 2006.

[10/9/09] I'm thinking of buying the Dog Whisperer Ultimate Episode Guide (especially since I recently bought Dog Whisperer Season 3 at Blockbuster) plus I see on ebay for 3.99 and I have .80 ebay bucks. I found this review on the web which said that a 2002 Los Angeles Times article helped lead to the series. So I did a search for Cesar Millan articles at latimes.com which came up with this 2004 feature article. It's not the same article but it is interesting looking back at the viewpoint of a 5-year old article. [7/19/10 - edited 2004 article link]

More latimes article: The sad story of Cotton who regressed after Cesar left. The owner turned to canine disarming. (Cotton kind of looks like Kimo.)

Cesar Millan: Saint or cult leader?

Marley and Me could have used Cesar

[5/5/07] Cesar has a myspace page

Cesar on youtube

Cesar on NPR

Nightline story

Boston Globe story

[7/14/10] Early videos with Cesar on Oprah's show

[8/12/10] videos from seasons 1-3 from The Teachings of Cesar Millan facebook page [via (oddly enough) the +R/-P Resource WebPage (rogue's gallery) relayed by terry pride on dogbehaviorscience 7/9/10] [2/2/12 - now here]

American Humane says Cesar's methods are inhumane.

Cesar responds to critics

[10/13/06] The Dog Whisperer comes to Hawaii

[1/30/07] Ian Dunbar vs. Cesar Millan

[6/14/10] Another article on Ian Dunbar

[9/16/10] Ian Dunbar on his contribution to Cesar's book [8/23/18 - I think I have this link elsewhere in my blog too]

[6/6/06] Not everyone agrees with Cesar's methods

[1/26/09] Another page of criticism of the Dog Whisperer

[5/28/10] Another critic of Cesar (and a lot of defenders)

[5/31/10] Here's a mostly positive article in a Modern Dog, evidently a magazine that backs Positive Training. Most of the comments are positive. Most.

[6/1/10] More criticisms of Cesar's by professionals. Followed up by a lot of his defenders.

[6/10/10] Beyond Cesar Millan (a whole website containing everything negative they can dig up on Cesar's techniques)

[8/3/10] Actually it's not just Cesar that the POs are campaigning against. It seems that they are against any training that's not PO and Cesar just happens to be the most visible. So that means virtually every single trainer of ten or twenty years ago. Take a look at the one-star comments of Brian Kilcommons and Sarah Wilson's book (as opposed to the 135 five-star comments).

[6/11/10] Cesar discussed on Tracie Hochtner's Dog Talk show. Continued.

[7/1/10] Jean Donaldson against Cesar (or "force" training)

[7/14/10] Nicole Wilde compares/contrasts Dog Whisperer to Dog Town

[2/27/10] While googling Pat Miller [she has some books I might be interested in looking at], I came across her book review of Cesar's first book. That led to these articles at 4pawsuniversity, which is apparently anti-Cesar, glancing at a couple of the articles. I'm still a fan, but these articles seem to be written by "professionals" who seem to view Cesar as an an un-educated amateur.

[2/27/10] A partially broken link led to articles by Melissa Alexander who's a clicker trainer.

[1/30/07] Malcolm Gladwell's article

[6/9/10] Gladwell's article became the title of his newest book What The Dog Saw which are a collection of articles from the New Yorker. (Why why not just read them online for free?)

[12/17/12] What The Dog Saw available online from the Ukraine

[7/14/10] Mark Derr critique and some responses plus a long response by terrierman

[7/19/10] Terry Pride of dogbehaviorscience passes down this article quoting Stanley Coren, Jean Donaldson, Ian Dunbar all against Cesar. [Nothing new, just take a glance at beyondcesarmillan] For some reason, terry seems to have something personal against Cesar. I count 28 comments. Terry is the most recent. FWIW, counting up the comments I see 5 against Cesar and 17 for. (Put me in the for category. It's theory vs. common sense. Then again I believe in magic.)

Coincidentally terry's post was followed by this one "I just wanted to update those who when I was a member before said, "How's that going for you?" in how I handled my dog. Since I got physical with his punishment he hasn't bit anyone. Also, since then he went to bite my boyfriend while my boyfriend was disciplining him, and he stopped himself before he bit my boyfriend. So how is this working out for me? WONDERFULLY! He hasn't dared bite a person since."

[Obviously I'm not advocating punishment. And neither does Cesar for that matter.]

[10/24/05] Generations of children are familiar with "Lassie," but Cesar Millan, who grew up in Mexico, was particularly affected by reruns of the beloved TV series about the heroic collie and her human sidekick, Jeff. [Wasn't the boy named Timmy?]

[10/11/05 - article found 8/23/18] Dog Whisperer seminar at Hawaii Convention Center

[transplanted from my original blog 1/26/09]

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Not everyone thought The Art of Racing in the Rain -- a story about a family, narrated by a wise and witty dog who yearns to be human -- was a great concept.  When author Garth Stein sent his manuscript to his agent, the agent promptly called him and said, "This is not a good idea; it's a gimmick.  It's not even a good gimmick.  Nobody writes a book narrated by a dog.  Sorry.  Write something I can sell."

To which Stein, confident in his work, replied, "I have an idea.  How about you're fired."

"The Art of Racing in the Rain was very straightforward," says Stein, meeting with the Connection at a small cafe near Seattle.  "It came almost in a magical way.  I wrote the first draft in four months."

At the time he was writing the book, he had rented space from a pizzeria near his home in Seattle.  "I just had a desk and it was open to the public, and in the afternoons I'd be working on a scene and crying and listening to music on my earphones.  [The owners would] be having a meeting with vendors and the vendors would be looking over ... and they'd say, 'What's with that guy?'" he recalls.  "The owners would say, 'He's a writer; dont pay attention to him.'"

Stein observes, "I think a writer has to be emotionally moved by the work; otherwise, how do you expect a reader to get emotionally [involved]?"

The Art of Racing in the Rain went on to spend more than three years on the New York Times best-seller list, selling more than 4 million copies in 32 languages, and has spawned a major motion picture opening this month.

Asked why he thinks the book has been so successful, Stein says, "I think the voice of Enzo is very compelling.  It's a relatively common story of a family where there's tragedy that happens, and how do we work our way out of that?  But the fact that it's being told from Enzo's point of view makes people want to hear what he has to say.  There's wisdom in there -- Enzo's wisdom.  If a person were to say some of those things, I'm sure people would roll their eyes a lot and say, 'Oh, it's a self-help book.' So in a weird way, it's a self-help book in disguise, maybe."

In the movie, Enzo is a golden retriever, but his breed was not actually identified in the book.  "I deliberately left it vague, because I knew people wanted to picture their own dog," explains Stein.  "So in the book he says, 'I'm half water dog on my mother's side,' and he's not quite sure who his sire is."

One of the driving factors in Enzo's narrative is his desire to be reincarnated as a human.  Stein got that idea from a documentary he watched on dogs in Mongolia, who are vital, important members of the family.  He says, "Those people were so intimately involved with dogs as part of their lives, they believe that that dog's going to be born tomorrow in your family.  That next kid is going to be your dog's spirit come back to be with you."

The Art of Racing in the Rain is more than a book; it's a cathartic experience.  You'll laugh and you'll cry -- a lot -- but in the end they will be tears of joy for a life-affirming experience.

***

A dog speaks

The Art of Racing in the Rain will make you laugh and cry

by Steve Fisher

-- This article appeared in the August 2019 Costco Connection.  Alas, that issue is no longer available online, so I typed it in.