Cesar, In His Own Words

Narrator: Cesar Millan is admired the world over for his intuitive and engaging style of dog rehabilitation. But to become an expert, Cesar needed to learn certain skills.

Cesar Milan: I grew up the old-fashioned way-- grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, siblings. We were the family with the dogs. My first teacher was my father. My mom had an amazing heart.

Narrator: By observing and imitating the way his grandfather worked with the family's ranch dogs, Cesar began to develop his own unique approach.

Cesar Milan: My grandfather was just this amazing instinctual person. So everything that has to do with animals, I learned it from him.

Narrator: But Cesar had a dream to come to America and become the world's greatest dog trainer.

Cesar Milan: My dad never got paid what he was worth. But he managed to save $100 throughout his whole life. When I told my dad-- Dad, I'm leaving, I'm going to America-- he brought the $100, his whole life savings, and gave it to me.

Narrator: Cesar soon put the $100 toward hiring a human smuggler who helped him cross the border safely.

Cesar Milan: And that to me was one of those symbolic days.

Narrator: Homeless and hungry, Cesar quickly learned how to survive and how to reinvent himself.

Cesar Milan: Hunger makes you become very creative. I stopped by the grooming center where they had an aggressive Cocker Spaniel. And I was in the back and calmed the dog down. And they were pretty fascinated about my approach. That's how I became known as this guy who has the magic touch.

Narrator: Cesar began walking packs of dogs. Newspapers and TV producers started paying attention. A successful television franchise was born. Cesar then founded and now runs the Dog Psychology Center in California.

Cesar works with people from all walks of life, including Ivonne Mosquera-Schmidt, an elite runner and triathlete who has been blind since the age of two. Ivonne, who typically runs with her husband John as a guide, recently began training her dog Ziggy to become another running partner.

Ivonne Mosquera-schmidt: I decided that it would be great to be able to have a dog who could run with me.

Narrator: But Yvonne hit a stumbling block. On several occasions, Ziggy was attacked by other dogs and became difficult to control.

Ivonne Mosquera-schmidt: The barrier I was coming up against was Ziggy's anxiousness, nervousness, and what I thought was aggression towards other dogs.

Narrator: Ziggy's nervous reaction appears to be the result of classical conditioning. Ziggy's experience with some aggressive dogs has conditioned him to interpret every dog as aggressive and to react accordingly. Yvonne and John turned to Cesar for help.

Cesar Milan: Ziggy is a nervous dog.

Let me borrow the stick. What I'm going to do is, I'm going to settle him down.

It's very common for dogs who are being attacked by other dogs to develop uncertainty for his own kind. As soon as he's settled, I'm going to bring a dog in. Stay--

Narrator: Having gotten Ziggy calm and controlled, Cesar slowly introduces him to new dogs. Slowly, Cesar helps Ziggy to create new positive associations about other dogs. It's work Yvonne and John can build on.

Ivonne Mosquera-schmidt: I'm ready to get ready to be and get his confidence built back up and help him feel secure.

Cesar Milan: This is just a matter of the human learning the technique. The human needs to recover the calmness, the confidence.

Ivonne Mosquera-schmidt: Oh--

Cesar Milan: Yes, that is the intention behind.

Ivonne Mosquera-schmidt: Ooh, I almost got it. I should record you.

Cesar Milan: There's an app for that.

You know, there's two types of school in the world. You have the streets. And then you have the books. I didn't learn much about ABCs and 1, 2, 3. I learned how to work in a pack. I learned how to be respectful, how to trust, how to love, how to believe, how to be loyal. Those things you don't learn in school.

Narrator: Cesar's goal is not just to learn, but to teach. His students have a much tougher species than dogs.

Ivonne Mosquera-schmidt: Wow--

Cesar Milan: That's right.

We're the complicated species. We're the only one that creates drama. If there's no problem, we make a problem. But my goal is to educate people. That's why I say-- I train people, rehabilitate dogs. How can I help humans unlock this amazing brain they have and go back to simplicity?