Mr. Milio also gives the National Geographic Channel credit for taking the initial plunge. “TV runs on fear,” he says. “No one gets fired for saying no and having it become a hit two years down the road someplace else. They get fired when they say yes and it tanks.”
The show premiered in 2004, and its audience grew slowly, by word of mouth. That first season, it wasn’t in prime time and the channel did little to market it. But Mr. Millan was magnetic. “I’ve been in the business 30-some years,” says Mr. Milio, “and I’ve met three people who had that kind of magic. One was Jacques Cousteau. One was Jim Henson. And the third is Cesar.”
In Season 2, the show expanded to an hour and moved into prime time. That’s when things started to take off.
NOT everyone agrees with Mr. Millan’s methods. “Positivist” trainers like Ian Dunbar reject the idea that a submissive dog is a happy dog. Mr. Dunbar advocates treating dogs as companions, not followers. While Mr. Millan uses his hand like a mother dog uses her mouth — to nudge dogs to behave — Mr. Dunbar shuns physical corrections and relies instead on treats and rewards.
To each his own, says Mr. Millan, whose favored “tsst!” sound is a correction heard around the world. “It’s just that I think I know something you might not know,” he says. “An open-minded human can learn from anybody.”
Soon, more humans will be able to learn from him. This summer, after a special 100th episode (and a third Emmy nomination for Mr. Millan), the National Geographic Channel struck a deal with Fox to syndicate “Dog Whisperer” next fall. That means 50 million or so of the nation’s 120 million households that might not know him will get their chance to meet El Perrero.
“Here in America, the dogs take over,” says Mr. Millan, and he doesn’t have to look far for evidence. Ms. Winfrey did an episode of her show with Mr. Millan in which she outed herself for loving her dog Sophie “like I gave birth myself.” She called her dogs “little people with fur,” until Mr. Millan told her this might be “good therapy for the mankind, but not for the dog kind.”
Mr. Millan says Mr. Eisner, whose home he visited for a private consultation, told him there was no way his German shepherd would get on a treadmill. “I said, ‘Well, sir, that’s your opinion.’ In less than three minutes, the dog was on the treadmill,” he recalls.
Mr. Eisner was unavailable to comment, but Mr. Millan said that once the dog was on the treadmill, all the business titan could say was “amazing.” Then he just walked away. “Because you know, he can’t be wrong,” says Mr. Millan.
On another occasion, Mr. Millan spent eight Sundays in a row eating breakfast with Mr. Scott, the movie director, and his two Jack Russell terriers, Scottie and Matilda. “When you can actually direct 2,000 people in a movie called ‘Gladiator,’ that makes you a very powerful man,” says Mr. Millan. “But two Jack Russells controlled this man.”
So how did the Dog Whisperer help? Mr. Millan attributes his success with the terriers to “patience, and sitting down and enjoying his cigar habit and waiting until he is in a zone,” he adds of Mr. Scott, who declined to comment. (A representative confirmed Mr. Millan’s account but says the director does not smoke cigars.)
“They get into zones, all these powerful people,” Mr. Millan said. “And they give you 10 minutes to listen to you.” Of course, by this point, he was charging handsomely for his time — $10,000 to $100,000 for a private consultation, which he usually donates to his foundation.
“What I learned about wealthy, wealthy, wealthy people is money talks. So you charge them a lot of money; you speak their language,” he says. “I don’t mind. I’m very happy with $100,000. Really. They really pay attention.”
ON a recent hot September day, Mr. Millan is standing outside his trailer in a San Fernando Valley suburb. On a break before shooting an episode about Spike, a year-old husky with a penchant for eating pool furniture, Mr. Millan speaks gratefully about the opportunities America has given him, and how he is determined to give back.
