Article published October 24, 2006
Sssst! Maybe what calms dogs would work on us
Maybe for you it's Brady Bunch reruns, or an episode of Behind the Music.
For me, the hands-down best guilty pleasure on TV is Dog Whisperer.
Every day, the world seems to be spiraling ever faster out of control.
The overnight news says more car bombs went off in Baghdad! Automaker Ford loses $5.8 billion-with-a-B in just one business quarter! The Republicans are at risk of losing ownership not just of Ohio, but much of nation!
Madness, I tell you …
Is it any wonder that in these troubled times, millions of other TV watchers just like me plop down on the couch and find themselves absolutely riveted by some guy who takes unquestionable control of a seemingly uncontrollable dog simply by squaring his shoulders and hissing?"Sssst!"
That all it takes for Cesar Milan, aka the Dog Whisperer, to make any canine stop in its tracks.
Doesn't matter if the dog barks too much, bites too often, growls too loudly, chases its tail for days on end, or sleeps standing upside down on its head.
There is no dog so neurotic that Cesar cannot transform it into a "calm, submissive" creature simply by using his trademark "calm, assertive" demeanor.
The new season of Dog Whisperer started last night at 9 o'clock on the National Geographic Channel.
Needless to say, I did not answer the phone during its broadcast. It's been too long of a rerun season.
When the program first aired, I think the ratings showed something like 6.23 people watched Dog Whisperer. By last season, it was the cable outlet's highest-rated show.
Oh, we are a nation in search of consistency and clarity, all right.
I like to watch Dog Whisperer with, naturally, my dog.
Roscoe and I sit together on the couch (which, come to think of it, might cause Cesar to frown). Roscoe barks back at any dog who barks on TV, and then promptly falls back to sleep whenever I try to direct his attention.
"Roscoe, see that dog? See how it obeys the funny short man? Roscoe, wake up! Sssst!"
Being a dachshund, he merely burrows deeper beneath the quilted throw and ignores me entirely.
My own dog trainer, Lisa - who, like Cesar, will tell you she doesn't really train dogs, she trains their owners - is another Dog Whisperer fan.
I chose Lisa to help me train Roscoe because my vet called her one of the best dog trainers he's ever seen. And, long after our sessions were over, when I asked her if she was familiar with Dog Whisperer, it turned out Lisa had driven to Columbus a few times to catch Cesar's appearances there.
So what does it say when your own dog trainer makes pilgrimages to see another dog trainer?
In a New Yorker magazine profile of Cesar last spring, author Malcolm Gladwell wrote: "In every episode, he arrives amid canine chaos and leaves behind peace."
Isn't that's reason enough right there to ditch the whole Barack vs. Hillary debate?
Sssst! Cesar '08!
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