THOSE MAGICAL AMERICAN DOGS My - Evolution from Training Dogs to Training People

Cesar favorite Rin Tin Tin

The television set was an old black-and-white Zenith made of plastic that was supposed to look like wood. When you walked into our Mazatlán apartment, you could hear it before you could see it as you walked down a narrow hallway into the living room with a floor of large black-and-white tiles and a couch against one wall. My mother loved to watch her telenovelas—the daily soap operas that were so popular in Mexico. My sister loved the program Maya, which was about an elephant. But me? I had only two favorites: Lassie and Rin Tin Tin.

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REWARDS, PUNISHMENT, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN - Is There a “Right” Way to Train a Dog?

Cesar works with Paul Diaz and Junior.

I always work from my instincts—the gift I believe gives me my understanding of dogs in the first place—but I’ve also been able to add a lot of new tools to my tool kit. Dogs are my teachers, but in the past few years, in my travels around the world since I started my TV show in 2004, I’ve met some interesting human teachers as well, some of them the top names in their field. Among these animal and dog experts—veterinarians, trainers, academics who study animal behavior or learning theory—some have disagreed strongly with me, many have challenged me, but all have influenced my growth, as a man and as a dog professional. Some of them have generously contributed their experience and wisdom to this book, and I hope my own insights and experiences have helped a few of them as well.

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LOSING THE LEASH - Dr. Ian Dunbar and Hands-Off Dog Training

Dune in the park

Our van filled with the scent of freshly blooming spring flowers as we wound our way up the picturesque streets of the Berkeley, California, hills. At the crest stood Ian and Kelly Dunbar’s house—a charming Italian-style villa from the 1920s, set above a lush garden that looked out on the park and the college town below.

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CESAR’S RULES FOR A TEACHABLE DOG … AND A TRAINABLE HUMAN

Cesar trains owners Adir and Anastasia Ionov.

“I tell people, ‘You know, we all have baggage, and some dogs do too. No dog is going to be perfect,’ ” says veteran trainer Joel Silverman. “People constantly come up to me and say, ‘Joel, you know I want to get a dog, but gosh, I just don’t want to go through it barking and lunging and running out the door. I mean, I just don’t know if I want to deal with all this stuff.’ I say to them, ‘You know, I have a great suggestion for you.’ They perk up, ‘What?’ And I say, ‘You need a potted plant. Put a potted plant in the corner, water it, it will grow beautifully for you, and I promise you it will stay right there.’ A dog, like a human, comes with baggage, and you need to understand, and be prepared for that.”

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HONOR THE ANIMAL - Lessons from Hollywood Animal Trainers

Chico

This isn’t a book for professional animal trainers; it’s for dog owners who want to give their pet the healthiest, happiest, most fulfilling life ever. But you don’t need to take your dog to a casting call to learn from the current generation of humane professional animal trainers working in Hollywood. A great animal trainer is a problem-solver and someone who understands that the best way to get the behavior you want from a dog is to honor the animal by first concentrating on what makes that particular dog happy.

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A WORLD OF WAYS TO BASIC OBEDIENCE - Step-by-Step Instructions

The pack takes a walk at the new Dog Psychology Center.

THE WALK

Anyone who watches Dog Whisperer knows how seriously I take the concept of the walk. Walking is about much more than giving your dog exercise, although exercise is the first and most important element in my three-part fulfillment formula and a big part of why we walk our dogs. To me, however, walking side by side is also the activity that forges the deepest kind of bond between human and dog. It is the primal core of that relationship. Thousands and thousands of years ago, humans and dogs first walked, hunted, and migrated together and thus became two species that would evolve side by side as interdependent partners. It’s a beautiful story—one of Mother Nature’s miracles—and when I walk with my pack of dogs in the hills behind the Santa Clarita Dog Psychology Center, I can hear thousands of years of human-dog history echoing in every step we take together.

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THE BASICS OF BALANCE - The Foundation of Training

Rollerblading at the Emmys

Back in the 1920s, L.A.’s majestic Shrine Auditorium was the largest indoor theater in the world, and today its looming Moorish architecture makes it just as impressive a structure. On September 19, 2006, its gleaming yellow Persian domes cast long shadows on the red carpet for the fifty-eighth Creative Arts Emmy Awards celebration. The September afternoon was hot, and I was a little uncomfortable in my black shirt, tailored tux, and fancy dress shoes, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t have been more excited. It was the second season of my show Dog Whisperer, and my team and I had been nominated for the first time, in the category of “outstanding reality show.”

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BASIC INSTINCTS - How Dogs Teach Us

Angel sniffs for cancer.

How did dog training really begin? Nobody knows for sure, of course, but in my mind’s eye I see a group of ancient humans and canines, roaming the plains together thousands of years ago and working cooperatively to find food, water, and safe shelter. Some people imagine that whatever the very first dog “trainers” did back over five thousand years ago involved some kind of force, but I’m not so sure about that. I’m more aligned with the theory that some more-docile, doglike wolves ingratiated themselves with early humans, choosing us as much as we co-opted them. I picture that first curious “psychologist” or behaviorist of dogs realizing that a playful puppy would do anything for a piece of food or a stick—of course there were no pet stores back then! Maybe the puppy would bring some of those things back and the human would tug on them and entertain both himself and the puppy at the same time. So there were two of a dog’s biggest motivations right there on display—play drive and food drive.

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