Dog Whisperer With Cesar Millan - History

History

The Dog Whisperer chronicles the work of Cesar Millan, a Mexican American with a facility for rehabilitating dogs with problematic behavior. Millan spent his childhood in the city of Culiacan in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico. However, his favorite place was his grandfather’s ranch where he was captivated by the wild dogs on the property. He spent so much time with the dogs that locals called him el perrero meaning "the dog boy." His fascination with dogs extended to television, and his favorite programs featured highly trained dogs such as Lassie.

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. He ran a dog training business from a van before opening the Dog Psychology Center in South Los Angeles, where he focused on rehabilitating especially aggressive dogs. His expertise with dogs was publicized primarily by word of mouth and Millan soon developed a clientele that included entertainment-industry professionals. 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.

Millan is a self-taught dog trainer who established a reputation for working with aggressive breeds and hard to handle cases at a San Diego dog groomers, subsequently developing a celebrity clientele.

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. They teamed with MPH Entertainment, Inc., which had been involved in successful reality-based cable shows, to produce a pilot. The producers had preliminary talks with Animal Planet, but the Network would not commit beyond a single pilot episode. The National Geographic Channel expressed interest in the program, ordering 26 half-hour episodes, on the proviso that MPH provide the required deficit financing. Under this agreement MPH and Emery/Sumner retained the copyright to the show. The channel retains control of television distribution in the United States and Canada. MPH and Emery/Sumner control worldwide home video and foreign sales and share that revenue with the channel, allowing them to create and market various video collections. The name of the program was similar to Paul Owens' 1999 book The Dog Whisperer. Owens, a positive trainer, has distanced himself from the program and now calls himself "the original dog whisperer".

The show premiered in 2004, gradually gaining audience attention, by word of mouth. For the first season, the series wasn’t positioned in prime time and the channel did little to promote the show. However, in Season 2 it was expanded to an hour and moved to a prime time slot. In 2009 the National Geographic Channel agreed with Fox to syndicate the series in the Fall of 2010, bringing it to a channel with exposure to approximately 50 million of the USA’s 120 million households. 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."

In 2006, former publicist Makeda Smith filed a copyright infringement suit which stated that in 2001, she and her partner branded Millan as "The Dog Whisperer" by conceiving, producing and directing what they say was a pilot named “The Dog Whisperer", featuring Tichina Arnold. The $5,000,000 lawsuit was settled out of court.

The program is broadcast in more than eighty countries worldwide where it is alternatively known as Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan, Dog Whisperer, or The Dog Whisperer. 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. In 2011 the program aired its seventh season, and all repeats and future new episodes were moved to Nat Geo WILD. Ten new episodes are currently being broadcast on Nat Geo WILD on Saturdays at 8pm ET. The new season will have more themed episodes, such as "home wrecker" dogs on Valentine's Day.

Nat Geo WILD announced the ninth and final season of Dog Whisperer will be aired starting in July 2012; Millan will then star in the 12-part series Leader of the Pack slated for airing in early 2013.