An Interview with Cesar Millan
Today’s entry regarding my interview with Cesar Millan was picked up by the Huffington Post and can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-witzeman/cesar-millan-changing-the_b_432052.html
I was given the opportunity to witness a filming of an episode of The Dog Whisperer in Burbank, CA at the home of a newly married couple. The guy had been a baseball player in high school and was now in the insurance field . . . so a pretty well built guy. The couple had two rescue dogs, one of which was skittish, so they asked for help in getting the dog back to balance.
Cesar did his usual interview with the couple probing all the possibilities and reasons for the dog’s behavior. After about 15 minutes the cameras were shut off and Cesar looked at the director and said, “Ok, is there anything else?” The director looked at the dog owner and said, “Yes, why don’t you tell Cesar about that one other thing.”
The cameras turned back on and the owner told Cesar about a lifelong fear. “I’ve always been afraid of pitbulls. Every other dog I feel like I can handle, but a pit bull . . . I just feel like if he wanted to he could overpower me.”
Cesar’s eyes lit up, “When I work with dogs, I have no fear. None. Dogs view fear as weakness and they will not give you trust after that. You’re saying, ‘This is what I want, I just want to be afraid of pit bulls.’ The problem you see is that compromises your ability to be a good pack leader (Cesar is referring to a broader sense of pack as in his family, employees and clients). If you take the attitude that I am not going to allow myself this fear for the good of the pack, then you will have no problems with pit bulls. They’ll see it right away and they won’t be aggressive toward you. Selfish is a very weak place to be. Fear often turns into anger for humans and that’s often the thing that takes us out of balance. The way you transform the fear is by going through it. You have to put yourself back into the situation that causes you the most fear and go through it this time with a calm assertive state. The challenge is an opportunity to transform. You change fear with knowledge. We’ll have to get you around some pitbulls to work on this. Dogs are amazing teachers because they’re so forgiving. But once you get over this fear it can transform your life. The way we treat animals is the way we treat people.”
What could the guys say except . . . “Yeah, let’s do it.”
So hopefully we’ll see the episode in a month or two. But again what’s so refreshing about Cesar’s approach is that he has none of the European intellectual filters about processing emotions. It’s all so instinctual. I’m not negating any of Jungian approach to finding the source of where the fears come from and dealing with fear there. But to watch Cesar model this connected, gut level approach to everything, I must say, it causes my spirit to soar just a little bit each time I see it.
