NEW YORK — Cesar Millan’s National Geographic series “Better Human Better Dog” is entering its fifth season.
What’s even more impressive is that the man known as the “Dog Whisperer” is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his first television appearance.
“It’s always about educating humanity,” he said. “I like the title more than ever. When it was called ‘The Dog Whisperer,’ people thought only one guy had that magic, but I think we all have that magic.”
Millan takes on the most difficult cases involving dogs and their owners, who are often at their wits’ end.
“Sometimes it’s the family. Sometimes the family isn’t a good fit for the dog, and that’s why we do the matchmaking episodes,” he said. Millan says most people need a dog from the middle or back of the herd.
This season we meet a lovable boxer named Brunello who can’t seem to stop attacking punching bags. It turns out there’s a lot more to the problem than even Brunello’s owner could have imagined.
“When I’m not 100 percent sure instinctively, I trust intelligence and I trust science. My friend Rick Garcia, who is a veterinarian, and I say, ‘Look, I don’t understand what’s wrong with this dog. It looks like he can see, it looks like he can hear. But something’s not right,'” Millan said.
It turned out that Brunello was suffering from numerous health complications that caused him distress.
“Brunello was 90% blind and 80% deaf, and on top of that he had a neurological problem. So these are additional challenges in addition to the aggressiveness. One thing is aggressiveness, and I’ve been aggressive all my life, but I’ve never treated a dog that had neurological problems, was blind and deaf,” he said.
According to Millan, the most common mistake dog owners make is to humanize the dog.
“You expect the dog to rationalize. We’re the only species that has a choice. And we can choose to do the wrong thing, and in the animal world they just choose to do the right thing,” Millan said. “If you unconsciously humanize the dog, you expect the same thing from him, to rationalize and do the right thing.
Decisions, but no, there is no knowledge behind the instinct, it is all reaction. We don’t expect that from a cat, we don’t expect that from a horse.”
After all these years, Millan says he just wants to use his talents to make a difference in the world.
“America is the most influential person in the world, and when America does something wrong, the whole world does it wrong,” Millan said. “And my motivation is that the whole world needs the same help, and that unites us, because a dog is a dog no matter where you go in the world.”
Cesar Millan: Better Human Better Dog, Season 5, premieres Friday, August 16 at 8/7c on National Geographic.
National Geographic is owned by Disney, the parent company of this channel.
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