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n the case of Sugar v. Forman, Cesar Millan knew none of the facts before arrivingI at the scene of the crime. That is the way Cesar prefers it. His job was to reconcile Forman with Sugar, and, since Sugar was a good deal less adept in mak- ing her case than Forman, whatever he learned beforehand might bias him in favor of the aggrieved party. The Forman residence was in a trailer park in Mission Hills, just north of Los Angeles. Dark wood panelling, leather couches, deep-pile carpeting. The air- conditioning was on, even though it was one of those ridiculously pristine South- ern California days. Lynda Forman was in her sixties, possibly older, a handsome woman with a winning sense of humor. Her husband, Ray, was in a wheelchair, and looked vaguely ex-military. Cesar sat across from them, in black jeans and a blue shirt, his posture characteristically perfect. “So how can I help?” he said. “You can help our monster turn into a sweet, lovable dog,” Lynda replied. It was clear that she had been thinking about how to describe Sugar to Cesar for a long time. “She’s ninety per cent bad, ten per cent the love. She sleeps with us at night. She cuddles.” Sugar meant a lot to Lynda. “But she grabs anything in sight that she can get, and tries to destroy it. My husband is disabled, and she de- stroys his room. She tears clothes. She’s torn our carpet. She bothers my grand- children. If I open the door, she will run.” Lynda pushed back her sleeves and ex- posed her forearms. They were covered in so many bites and scratches and scars and scabs that it was as if she had been tortured. “But I love her. What can I say?” Cesar looked at her arms and blinked: “Wow.” Cesar is not a tall man. He is built like a soccer player. He is in his mid-thirties, and has large, wide eyes, olive skin, and white teeth. He crawled across the bor- der from Mexico fourteen years ago, but his English is exceptional, except when he gets excited and starts dropping his ar- ticles—which almost never happens, be- cause he rarely gets excited. He saw the arms and he said, “Wow,” but it was a “wow” in the same calm tone of voice as “So how can I help?” Cesar began to ask questions. Did Sugar urinate in the house? She did. Cesar has made his reputation by taking on the toughest dogs—dogs that have injured people 48 THE NEW YORKER, MAY 22, 2006 TNY—2006_05_22—PAGE 48—133SC.—LIVE ART R15118_RD, CRITICAL CUT TO BE WATICHED THROUGHOUT ENTIRE PRESS RUN!— #2 PAGE—TYPE CORRECTION PROFILES WHAT THE DOG SAW Cesar Millan and the movements of mastery. BY MALCOLM GLADWELL CORBIS and killed other dogs—and taming them. They see something in him that they don’t see in their owners. Photomontage by Martin Schoeller. TNY—2006_05_22—PAGE 49—133SC.—LIVE ART R15118_RD, CRITICAL CUT TO BE WATICHED THROUGHOUT ENTIRE PRESS RUN! treats, the remote, the plastic cup, and the newspaper and placed them inches from her lowered nose. Sugar, the one- time terror of Mission Hills, closed her eyes in surrender. “She has no rules in the outside world, no boundaries,” Cesar said, finally. “You practice exercise and affection. But you’re not practicing exercise, discipline, and affection. When we love someone, we fulfill everything about them. That’s lov- ing. And you’re not loving your dog.” He stood up. He looked around. “Let’s go for a walk.” Lynda staggered into the kitchen. In five minutes, her monster had turned into an angel. “Unbelievable,” she said. “Why, Mr. Larsen! We were about ready to give up on you.” esar Millan runs the Dog Psychol- ogy Center out of a converted auto •• mechanic’sC shop in the industrial zone of South-Central Los Angeles. The center She had a particularly destructive rela- cute, but she had a mean, feral look in her is situated at the end of a long narrow tionship with newspapers, television re- eyes. Carly put Sugar on the carpet, and alley, off a busy street lined with bleak motes, and plastic cups. Cesar asked Sugar swaggered over to Cesar, sniffing warehouses and garages. Behind a high about walks. Did Sugar travel, or did his shoes. In front of her, Cesar placed a green chain-link fence is a large concrete she track—and when he said “track” he newspaper, a plastic cup, and a television yard, and everywhere around the yard did an astonishing impersonation of a remote. there are dogs. Dogs basking in the sun. dog sniffing. Sugar tracked. What about Sugar grabbed the newspaper. Cesar Dogs splashing in a pool. Dogs lying on discipline? snatched it back. Sugar picked up the picnic tables. Cesar takes in people’s “Sometimes I put her in a crate,” newspaper again. She jumped on the problem dogs; he keeps them for a min- Lynda said. “And it’s only for a fifteen- couch. Cesar took his hand and “bit” imum of two weeks, integrating them minute period. Then she lays down and Sugar on the shoulder, firmly and calmly. into the pack. He has no formal training. she’s fine. I don’t know how to give dis- “My hand is the mouth,” he explained. He learned what he knows growing up cipline. Ask my kids.” “My fingers are the teeth.” Sugar jumped in Mexico on his grandfather’s farm in “Did your parents discipline you?” down. Cesar stood, and firmly and fluidly Sinaloa. As a child, he was called el Per- “I didn’t need discipline. I was per- held Sugar down for an instant. Sugar rero, “the dog boy,” watching and study- fect.” struggled, briefly, then relaxed. Cesar ing until he felt that he could put himself “So you had no rules. .What about backed off. Sugar lunged at the remote. inside the mind of a dog. In the morn- using physical touch with Sugar?” Cesar looked at her and said, simply ings, Cesar takes the pack on a four-hour “I have used it. It bothers me.” and briefly, “Sh-h-h.” Sugar hesitated. walk in the Santa Monica mountains: “What about the bites?” She went for the plastic cup. Cesar said, Cesar in front, the dogs behind him; the “I can see it in the head. She gives me “Sh-h-h.” She dropped it. Cesar mo- pit bulls and the Rottweilers and the that look.” tioned for Lynda to bring a jar of treats German shepherds with backpacks, so “She’s reminding you who rules the into the room. He placed it in the mid- that when the little dogs get tired Cesar roost.” dle of the floor and hovered over it. Sugar can load them up on the big dogs’ backs. “Then she will lick me for half an looked at the treats and then at Cesar. Then they come back and eat. Exercise, hour where she has bit me.” She began sniffing, inching closer, but then food. Work, then reward. “She’s not apologizing. Dogs lick each an invisible boundary now stood between “I have forty-seven dogs right now,” others’ wounds to heal the pack, you her and the prize. She circled and circled Cesar said. He opened the door, and know.” but never came closer than three feet. they came running over, a jumble of Lynda looked a little lost. “I thought She looked as if she were about to jump dogs, big and small. Cesar pointed to a she was saying sorry.” on the couch. Cesar shifted his weight, bloodhound. “He was aggressive with “If she was sorry,” Cesar said, softly, and blocked her. He took a step toward humans, really aggressive,” he said. In a “she wouldn’t do it in the first place.” her. She backed up, head lowered, into corner of the compound, a Wheaton ter- It was time for the defendant. Lynda’s the furthest corner of the room. She sank rier had just been given a bath. “She’s granddaughter, Carly, came in, holding down on her haunches, then placed her stayed here six months because she could a beagle as if it were a baby. Sugar was head flat on the ground. Cesar took the not trust men,” Cesar explained. “She 50 THE NEW YORKER, MAY 22, 2006 TNY—2006_05_22—PAGE 50—133SC—LIVE OPI ART A11452. was beat up severely.” He idly scratched long as a city block. “This is our Chuck E. ded, almost imperceptibly, toward the a big German shepherd. “My girlfriend Cheese,” Cesar said. The dogs saw Cesar enclosure, and all forty-seven dogs here, Beauty. If you were to see the rela- approaching the back gate, and they ran, turned and filed happily back through tionship between her and her owner.” He expectantly, toward him, piling through the gate. shook his head. “A very sick relationship. the narrow door in a hodgepodge of A ‘Fatal Attraction’ kind of thing. Beauty whiskers and wagging tails. Cesar had a ast fall, Cesar filmed an episode of sees her and she starts scratching her and bag over his shoulder, filled with tennis “Dog Whisperer” at the Los Ange- biting her, and the owner is, like, ‘I love balls, and a long orange plastic ball scoop lesL home of a couple named Patrice and you, too.’ That one killed a dog. That one in his right hand. He reached into the Scott. They had a Korean jindo named killed a dog, too.

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