We all seem to love Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. Or do we?
As a whole, the consensus is that the National Geographic Channel's self-taught super dog trainer is the best thing since the advent of the pooper-scooper. But some of us disagree. We think his whisper is a growl and his scooper is getting rusty.
His self-proclaimed pack leader mentality has dogs shaking in corners, ears down, eyes aglaze. His dominance-based training methods and use of flooding techniques and negative reinforcement are outdated. Although some of his methods work in some cases, he is clearly not whispering. In fact, he's mauling the concept of dog whispering: the real thing — Zen-like behavior modification through positive, non-aggressive techniques — was forged by Paul Owens, the original Dog Whisperer, who wrote about his methods in 1999 and has been practicing for well over 35 years.
The American Humane Association believes that Millan's methods are "more harmful than helpful," and has written letters to NGC to get the program off the air.
This article appears in Jan 20-26, 2010.