July 08, 2006

Malcolm Gladwell on Cesar Milan

Have you seen the Dog Whisperer on the National Geographic channel? It's fascinating, as a pet owner (cats, not dogs, but I can make some leaps) and as a fan of animal behavior science. Cesar Milan seems to have an instinctive understanding of dog behavior — don't know if it's good science, but it certainly seems valid intuitively.

In the episodes I've seen, Milan mostly tells the dog owners to spend more time with their dogs, preferably walking / exercising them. He says the three things that are most important (not sure of the order here) are: Exercise / intellectual stimulation; Discipline; and Love. Many owners are heavy on the third but lighter on the first two. I will watch more to see if there are any dog tips which can be applied to cat lives. "More exercise" would not interest my felines. But I digress.

Malcolm Gladwell interviewed Cesar Milan in the May 22 issue of The New Yorker. There's also a New Yorker Q&A with Gladwell at the New Yorker site.

WHAT THE DOG SAW. By: Gladwell, Malcolm. New Yorker, 5/22/2006, Vol. 82
Issue 14, p48-57.
Sadly, this isn't on Gladwell's blog yet ... maybe soon? It's in Academic Search Premier & the other usual library databases, though.

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