Calm, confidence, love & joy: How Will + Jada Pinkett Smith helped create The Dog Whisperer

How To Train Your Dog With Love And Science - Dog Training with Annie Grossman, School For The Dogs

Did you know that The Dog Whisperer and Jada Pinkett Smiths are longtime best friends? Two weeks ago, Will Smith calmly and confidently sauntered up on to the stage of the Oscars and slapped someone who said something he didn't like. His vibe and techniques struck Annie as a bit Dog Whisper-y. Maybe that's because she was aware that Cesar Millan, aka The Dog Whisperer, was supposedly made famous in part early on because of his connection to a small handful of movie stars, among them, the Smiths. Annie unearths some old Red Table Talk recordings of The Dog Whisperer revealing his origin story to Jada and her mother,. She also reads from a 7-year-old Cesars Way blog post where Jada talks about how the dog training lessons she learned from Cesar has helped her marriage.

Cesar Millan on Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith and Gammy (Adrienne Banfield-Norris) in 2018

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=600331890366290&id=538649879867825&_rdr

Cesar’s Way article from 2015: Jada Pinkett Smith Takes The Lead

https://www.cesarsway.com/jada-pinkett-smith-takes-the-lead/

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Partial Transcript:

Annie:

Have you ever disliked a celebrity purely by proxy? I'm not telling you that there's a celebrity, I've maybe long disliked by association. I'm just asking you. Have you ever disliked a celebrity because of that celebrity's association with another celebrity? Where one of these celebrities might be in a completely different field than the other celebrity?

Because there's this one celebrity who has been in the news a lot in the last week. And I don't think I need to tell you how I feel about this person. But I do wanna tell you that this person has probably had a larger impact on the field of dog training than one might realize, on dog training as it exists in the mainstream today. And I wanted to also maybe propose the argument that he has caused a lot more harm to dogs than he's ever caused to people, if only secondarily, if not also in practice. I don't know.

Purely because this one person's celebrity helped create the celebrity we know as Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer. Now, if you've ever watched The Dog Whisperer, you probably would guess that someone who is an acolyte of Cesar Millan might be very forceful, might feel that they need to be the alpha, as they say, lead the pack, be the protector, be the leader and not take not take lip from anyone. And someone who might feel fine about using physical force, without considering the unintended consequences or fallout of using punishment, be it physical or otherwise, he'd be perhaps someone like Will Smith.

Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith are long time friends of Cesar Millan’s. And their celebrity is part of what helped him reach such heights in popular culture. I started thinking about this and wanted to do an episode on this and started to look online. I knew that he had worked with Cesar. I mean, I knew that Cesar had worked with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's dog. So I thought maybe I could find clips of him giving the kind of advice that, were you'd apply it to humans, would lead you to slap people in the face.

Sometimes Cesar Millan is so often talking about humans and the human behavior and energy, and how to be an alpha, and all these kinds of things that make me think of someone actually kind of like Will Smith. Someone who is charismatic and seems like they're beaming love and energy and confidence, but also fine using force.

Full Transcript at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Podcast