Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan
[2] Produced by Sheila Emery and Kay Sumner in association with MPH Entertainment, Inc., the program had an estimated audience of 11 million American viewers per week.
In inviting submissions, the producers looked for a wide variety of dog problems, including unusual phobias, obsessions, fearful behavior, aggression, or other unique situations that Cesar could help transform.
Producers asked owners for anything interesting or funny about their dog and requested a short video showing three instances of the problem behavior.
[13] On occasion, Dog Whisperer was taken "on the road" with episodes recorded in U.S. cities other than Los Angeles, and from the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
[15] By his teens, Millan had decided that he wanted to be a Hollywood animal trainer, and he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for a dog grooming store and then for a limousine company.
Millan's first mention in the national mainstream media came in People magazine in December 2002 in an article describing his work with action-film director Ridley Scott's Jack Russell Terriers.
In 2002, after he was profiled in a newspaper article, Millan received offers from a number of producers and chose to work with Sheila Emery and Kay Sumner.
[22] The National Geographic Channel expressed interest in the program, ordering 26 half-hour episodes on the proviso that MPH provide the required deficit financing.
[3] A journalist for The Times questioned Cesar Millan on his motivation for producing the program, and quoted him as responding, "The goal that God and I have together is the whole world transformed through a dog.
[2] At the debut of the sixth season of the Dog Whisperer, a New York Times article estimated an audience of 11 million American viewers each week.
The ninth and final season of Dog Whisperer began airing in July 2012, with Millan going on to star in the 12-part series Leader of the Pack in 2013.
The writers of Dog Whisperer, Jim Milio and Melissa Jo Peltier, write that they put on their "writer-producer hats to focus, restructure, and help create a theme for the segment".
Thirty-six other crew members are involved in location management, sound recording, camera operation, music, editing, and production assistance.
"[43] In February 2006, an article in the New York Times quoted Dr. Nicholas Dodman, director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, said that his college had "written to National Geographic Channel and told them they have put dog training back 20 years".
According to Derr, Millan's methodology "flies in the face of what professional animal behaviorists—either trained and certified veterinarians or ethologists—have learned about normal and abnormal behavior in dogs".
[46] Also in 2006, the American Humane Association (AHA) requested that the National Geographic Channel stop airing the program,[47] saying that training tactics shown on Dog Whisperer were inhumane, outdated and improper.
Horwitz added the show also has the major drawback of attributing behavior problems to dominance when the dog may be misbehaving because it is fearful or anxious.
[51] Pet columnist Steve Dale said in a July 2010 newspaper column that while he believed Millan was "blessed with an amazingly intuitive understanding of dog behavior", some of the methods shown on the program, particularly those related to dominance, were inappropriate and not substantiated by science.
[52] The Humane Society of the United States Genesis Award Committee presented Milan with a 2008 Special Commendation for his work in rehabilitating animals.
[54][55][56][57] Dog Whisperer premiered in 2004 as a half-hour program but subsequently became first in the National Geographic channel ratings and was expanded to a prime-time, one hour format.
[9] In 2007, the network renewed its most popular series to that date with an unprecedented 35 episodes in which Millan travelled the show to U.S. cities like New York and Miami.
Millan's pit bull, Junior, allegedly killed Queen Latifah's dog and attacked gymnast Lidia Matiss.
