“I would like to share something on the editing aspect of the show. I was on Cesar’s Dog Whisperer show as the first dog walker in action. I had two cases I had not been able to create a result with and applied for Cesar’s help.
Filming the Dog Whisperer Show took a whole day
Filming the show took a whole day, so of course there was a lot of editing and the show could have been done in numerous ways. But when it was aired I was really impressed. It not only gave the essence of what happened that day, it also showed Cesar’s frustration with those two cases.
He commented that he’d rather work with an aggressive dog than what I had presented to him: Two hyperactive Golden Retrievers, and a ball obsessed lab, which only took him 45 minutes to change. And his energy with the Lab was very different from the Goldens. He used what you would call a different level of “motivation”. The Lab responded to that very well. It took him a while to get through to the Goldens and in the show it was indicated that this was one of his bigger challenges.
I had watched all of his first and second seasons of The Dog Whisperer
I had watched all of his first and second seasons repeatedly, I had seen lots of episodes of the following seasons and I had been to his center in Los Angeles once with an aggressive dog owned by one of my clients before his show started, years ago. To me in person he is just like he comes across in the show. He is real and humble and his talent is phenomenal. He can “project” what it is he would like to achieve in a way that makes your body react.
When he was showing me some of the signals the aggressive dog I brought to his center would give before the attack, my hair stood on end. I felt like I was going to be bitten. He really knows how dogs communicate in all aspects! And I have to say that the show is as close to what is going on in the session as possible, going by my own experience of the show I was in. It is episode 416, “Energy Crisis, Jake, Riley and Norton” if you are interested in watching.
After Cesar left I worked hard with the Goldens and also the ball obsessed Lab. In both cases I kept working with the dogs for two months several times a week to establish a different, lasting result. And these dogs are changed now! They have responded to the original change and kept it with the reinforcement of keeping up the program. It not only changed my way of working with dogs, it also showed me that once you “break through” keeping up is a definite possibility if you are willing to put the effort in, thanks to the dog whisperer!”