Cesar Millan

César Millán Favela was born on August 27, 1969, to Felipe Millán Guillen and María Teresa Favela in rural Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. Millan grew up working with animals on the farm in Sinaloa where his grandfather was a tenant farmer. Because of his natural way with dogs, he was called el Perrero, "the dog boy". The family later moved to Mazatlán. Millan crossed the border into the United States without a visa when he was 21 years old and spoke no English.

Millan's first job in the United States was at a dog grooming store. He later created the Pacific Point Canine Academy. Jada Pinkett Smith became one of Millan's first clients and supporters when he was working as a limousine driver, providing him with an English tutor for a year. Subsequently, Millan created the Dog Psychology Center, a two-acre (0.81 ha) facility in South Los Angeles, specializing in working with large breed dogs.

In 2002, after a profile in the Los Angeles Times, Millan worked with MPH Entertainment, Inc. developing a television pilot for Dog Whisperer, a reality television series that follows Millan as he works in the field of dog rehabilitation. The series premiered on September 13, 2004, on the National Geographic Channel, subsequently moving to the Nat Geo WILD channel. The show would become National Geographic's No. 1 show during its first season and was broadcast in more than eighty countries worldwide during its run. The final episode of the show was broadcast in the U.S. on September 15, 2012.

In 2009, Cesar Millan launched Cesar’s Way magazine in the United States and Canada, for which he was the Editorial Director. The magazine combined advice from Millan along with articles about the relationship between dogs and humans. Cesar Millan's Leader of the Pack was an American documentary television series on the Nat Geo Wild channel which ran from January 5, 2013 to March 26, 2013. The next year, 2014, saw the premiere of Millan's new series, Cesar 911, on the Nat Geo WILD channel; in non-American markets, it’s known as Cesar to the Rescue. In 2015, he teamed up with children's television veterans Sid and Marty Krofft to create Mutt & Stuff, a preschool television show for the Nickelodeon channel. Millan's son Calvin stars on the series. In early 2017, Cesar and his older son Andre will appear in the all-new series Dog Nation, premiering March 3.

Millan's work focuses on handling a dog with what he calls "calm-assertive energy". He believes that dog owners should establish their role as calm-assertive pack leaders. According to Millan, dogs have three primary needs: exercise, discipline and affection — in that order. In other words, it is the owner's responsibility to fulfill the dog's energy level needs through challenging exercise; then to provide clearly communicated rules, boundaries and limitations; and finally, to provide affection. According to Millan, a common pitfall for American dog owners is to give a great deal of affection with very little exercise and even less discipline. He encourages owners to understand the effect their own attitudes, internal emotions and physical postures have on a dog's behavior, counseling owners to hold strong posture (i.e., shoulders high and chest forward) and to project energy that is calm-assertive.

Millan's TV programs show him at work rehabilitating dogs and conversing with owners in order to educate them in his dog-handling philosophy. The conversations with owners typically revolve around his philosophy that healthy, balanced dogs require strong "pack leadership" from their owners, specifically in the form of exercise, discipline and affection (in that order), with Millan demonstrating how owners can achieve and maintain a leadership role with their dogs. In some cases, Millan takes dogs with severe behavioral problems to his Dog Psychology Center for an extended period of more intensive rehabilitation. The programs are not intended as a dog training guide, and each episode contains repeated warnings that viewers should not try the behavior modification techniques at home without the guidance of a professional.

While working with a dog, Millan often uses vocal marks such as tsch, gestures, and body language to communicate with dogs rather than speech or the dog's name. Cesar encourages owners to create their own unique sound that works for them. He believes that dogs sense, understand, and respond to a person's energy more easily than their speech.

According to a January 2007 article in the Indian scientific journal Current Science, some professional dog trainers find Millan's methods outdated, flawed and "unscientific and inhumane." Millan's detractors say that what Millan calls "calm submission" is actually a state of helplessness that is the result of averse dog-training techniques. A study in Applied Animal Behaviour Science said Millan has been influential in popularizing punitive techniques, but that bad behavior from dogs was caused by fear and anxiety, not a lack of the owner's alpha status. A journalist from The New Yorker said that critics were responding to a "highly edited" version of his approach on television, which exaggerates the frequency and intensity that he uses when he disciplines the dogs.

In October 2012, Millan appeared on The Alan Titchmarsh Show. Titchmarsh called his methods "cruel" and "unnecessary", citing a video in which, Titchmarsh said, Millan punched a dog in the throat. Millan called it a touch, not a punch. Titchmarsh read out an RSPCA statement saying that "Adverse training techniques which have been seen to be used by Cesar Millan can cause pain and fear for dogs and may worsen their behavioural problems." Metro UK described the interview as the first time that Titchmarsh has "deviated from his usual interview strategy – which runs the gamut from mild to wild sycophancy" and described him as "probably the only celeb Millan has failed to win over..."

Millan became a permanent resident of the United States in 2000, became a United States citizen in 2009, and lives in Los Angeles, California. He married Ilusión Wilson in 1994, with whom he had two sons, André (b. 1995) and Calvin (b. 2001).

In June 2010, Ilusión Millan filed for divorce, seeking primary physical custody of their children with visitation for Cesar, as well as spousal support. In May 2010, after his dog Daddy died in February and his wife filed for divorce, Millan attempted suicide. Since August 2010, he has been in a relationship with Jahira Dar from the Dominican Republic. They announced their engagement in April, 2016.

One of Millan's many dogs, Daddy, was an American Pit Bull Terrier integral to Millan's work and his television series, The Dog Whisperer. Millan later selected another pit bull puppy, Junior, as Daddy's protégé — to apprentice, learn his temperament and prepare to assume Daddy's role after his death. Daddy's death came at age 16 in February 2010. After the death of Daddy, Junior has now assumed Daddy's role and helps Cesar with rehabilitating dogs by using what Millan refers to as calm, assertive energy.

Millan guest-starred as himself in Ghost Whisperer in Season 2, Episode 18, "Children of Ghosts". In the episode, Melinda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) seeks out Millan for advice on how to help Homer, Ghost Whisperer's ghost dog (from Season 1), cross over into the light. A satirized version of Millan was portrayed in "Tsst", the May 3, 2006, episode of the Comedy Central animated series South Park. In the episode, Liane Cartman enlists Millan's help in applying his principles to her misbehaving son, Eric Cartman. The principles work, and Eric becomes completely reformed, but Liane fails to continue applying Millan's techniques, and Eric reverts to his old behavior. Millan played himself in "The Finger in the Nest", the September 17, 2008, episode of Bones, helping the lead characters to determine if a location was used for dog fighting. Millan played himself in Beethoven's Big Break, which premiered in cinemas on December 30, 2008, and The Back-Up Plan, which was released April 23, 2010, in theaters.

Millan made a guest appearance as a judge on Episode 3 of the 10th season of The Apprentice, a contestant in the April 27, 2011 episode of Jeopardy! and as a chef's table guest in the Season 15 episode of Hell's Kitchen.