You’ve probably heard of horse whispering but there is also such a thing as a dog whisperer. These people talk wayward animals into behaving. There actually was a television series about a Dog Whisperer. It made its appearance on the National Geographic Channel in 2004. The sponsor of the show is the Pet food company Purina and another American pet store chain called Petco. I ran across it while looking for something to write about on this blog because it is one of the most downloaded of mp3s on the Internet. I guess this is because people can take an iPod to the park and follow the instructions to train their pet live while viewing the episode. The Dog Whisperer himself is Cesar Millan who has made a living from dog whispering. His specialty is working with difficult to train dogs , the typical alpha dog. In each episode he tries to cure a dog of a bad habit such as being possessive of food or toys or biting, growling or nipping at people’s heels. Each of the dogs featured on the television show the Dog Whisperer has a serious problem and at the beginning of each show each is incredibly destructive. You see lots of footage of these dogs trashing a room in just a couple of minutes usually because they are bored or lonely. Millan uses the fifty or so dogs that he owns on his farm including dog breeds such as Rotweilers, Pit Bulls and German Shepherds to demonstrate how to be a dog whisperer. This is impressive as these are know to be ,bad dogs, but he does not get his ear torn off. A dog is only as good as his owner, as they say, so the aim of The Dog Whisperer is definitely to teach people how to be better owners. In essence being a good Dog Whisperer is actually about teaching a dog that is boss. Millan teaches each dog that the dog owner is the leader of the pack and not the alpha dog. If you get a dog that thinks he is a leader, then you have an aggressive or even an alpha dog. This kind of dog is often overly suspicious, possessive and protective. One thing a good dog whisperer can do is calm this type of dog down by making him feel secure and like there is a leader. This persuades your dog to stop trying so hard to take over what he perceives in his doggie mind to be your incompetanace. In the wild the leader of the pack would do this by being firm and direct with his body language. The Dog Whisperer cues humans to do the same so that the dog feels secure. The motto of the Dog Whisperer is ,exercise, discipline and then affection., This is demonstrated on dog after dog in the many episodes of Cesar Millan’s shows. The show is very popular as he makes it very easy for any dog owner to understand the principles involved in getting your dog to behave in all kinds of different situations.