Raising a Dog & Mastering Calm Assertive Energy | Cesar Millan | Andrew Huberman Transcript

Andrew Huberman interviews dog trainer and behaviorist Cesar Millan on dog psychology, human energy, and calm assertive leadership

Andrew Huberman speaks with Cesar Millan about raising dogs, understanding canine psychology, and how the principles of calm, assertive energy apply equally to human relationships and daily life.

Summary

Andrew Huberman hosts Cesar Millan — widely known as "the Dog Whisperer" — for a wide-ranging conversation that moves from practical dog-raising advice into human psychology, relationships, spirituality, and the nature of energy exchange between all living beings. Millan argues that most dog behavioral problems originate with the human, not the animal, and that the solution lies in understanding the dog as spirit, animal, species, and breed — in that order — before projecting human emotions onto them. He presents a clear framework: exercise first, then discipline, then affection, and explains why reversing that order produces anxious, confused, and poorly behaved dogs. The conversation extends into Millan's personal life, including his reflections on failed relationships, the concept of masculine and feminine instinctual energy, and how his work with dogs ultimately taught him how to be a better partner and human being. Both speakers discuss the parallels between dog pack dynamics and human social structures, the importance of death awareness, and the use of deliberate cold exposure as a tool for experiencing the calm surrender state that dogs respond to best.

Key Takeaways

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Introduction and Huberman's personal history with Cesar Millan's methods

Andrew Huberman: Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Cesar Millan, better known as the Dog Whisperer and the preeminent dog trainer in the world.

Today's episode is truly for everyone, not just dog owners. You're going to learn a lot about human psychology and behavior, and it will help you better interact with other humans in every type of relationship. For instance, you will learn a simple tool that allows you to move through the world with a clear, calm state of mind that will allow you to interact with others more effectively, to listen and act with more clarity and intention. And not incidentally, that clear, calm state of mind is also what dogs respond to best, and what makes them feel safe and healthy.

Today we talk about the critical importance of understanding dog biology and psychology and the fact that they are pack animals — and that we have to remove our human sense about these animals as our pets. Of course they are our pets and they're extremely cute. They are family members. But we must understand the hardwired aspects of their brain and biology that allow us to be the best leaders for them.

I have to warn you, a lot of what you hear today may sound counterintuitive at first, until you understand the biology of dogs and the fact that they respond to people's energy and actions, not words. I know they can listen to commands, they can learn words and commands, but they're responding to the energy and the actions associated with those commands. Only then can you be the most effective dog owner. And by effective, I mean making your dog as healthy and feeling as safe as possible.

I should point out that one of the reasons I'm so excited Cesar came on this podcast is that I had an amazingly positive experience with his methods years ago when I got my first puppy, Costello, who was a bulldog mastiff. I read his book, Be the Pack Leader, and the principles within that book were critical for developing an incredible relationship with Costello, who lived 11 years. You could bring him into any environment. I would bring him to class. I would bring him into different people's homes. I could take him essentially anywhere. He loved kids. He loved people. And he was extremely well behaved — exceedingly lazy, too, but exceedingly well behaved. And I credit that to the methods that I learned from Cesar's book.

So if you have a dog, or you're considering getting a dog, or you want to better understand how to regulate your energy and behavior in all types of interactions — with dogs, with cats, and with other humans — today's episode will teach you those extremely valuable tools.

I'm also extremely pleased to announce the newest member of the Huberman Lab podcast team, Strummer. He's also a bulldog mastiff mix. He's similar to Costello in breed, but not a pure English bulldog, so not a lot of snoring and the other stuff that goes along with English bulldogs. I love the English bulldog breed, but when they're mixed with other breeds like this one, they breathe a lot easier. He's just the sweetest thing. So you'll be seeing and perhaps hearing more from Strummer. I am applying all of Cesar's methods to training Strummer. You can see he's a very calm, relaxed dog. He gets two walks a day and a bunch of other things you'll learn about during today's episode.

Energy, silence, and the five pillars of connection

Andrew Huberman: Cesar Millan, welcome. I'm a huge fan. Your book, Be the Pack Leader — I read the hard copy to raise my first puppy. We never had a dog in my home growing up. To raise Costello, a bulldog mix, a stubborn dog. We went 11 years together, he and I. And that book and your other teachings were tremendously impactful for my relationship with him — but also in my work life, in my entire life. We're going to talk about some of the themes from that book and beyond today. But I just want to extend my gratitude. It's a true honor and pleasure to have you here.

Cesar Millan: Thank you. I'm honored to hear that. In modern parlance, they say, "You're the man."

Andrew Huberman: No, you're the man. The pack leader. Many people want dogs, have dogs, have these concepts of dogs that lead them to think they're a great dog owner, but a lot of dog behavioral issues, emotional issues — we know they probably reflect something in the human as well.

Cesar Millan: Yeah, probably. Because there is no knowledge behind instinct. It's all reaction. So you can never blame an animal for doing the wrong thing. To guarantee that a dog does the right thing, the human has to have good energy. And what's good energy? Well, if you understand the power of silence — which gives you patience — the power of calmness, which gives you trust. Calmness is something you just learn how to breathe into. The power of confidence — that's knowledge. And the power of love, knowing when to give love, because a lot of times people give love at the wrong time. So you end up nurturing the wrong behavior. And then the power of joy — that's the celebration.

We're going to the World Cup right now. Nobody celebrates unless they make a goal. But they have to be patient, calm, confident, love what they're doing, and celebrate afterward. They follow that formula. It's the silence, the calmness before anybody's going to go through something so powerful as winning, or being in a team or a group. The energies of silence, calmness, confidence, love, and joy are what make them a great team, because that's what connects your spirit, your instinct, your heart, and your mind.

It's the same way we have to connect with a dog. It's not just emotional. It's not just intellectual. When people just want to train the dog, what you train is the mind. What you connect is the spirit, the instinct, and the heart. That's what you connect. And that's why I say trust, respect, love. Trust the spirit. Respect instinct. Love with the heart. Create with your mind.

For many people, especially in the United States, they're not familiar with feeling energy and exchanging energy with a dog.

Andrew Huberman: I'll give an example. When Costello, my previous bulldog — some probably bulldog mastiff, who knows what he was, but whatever he was, he was Costello.

Cesar Millan: But before he's Costello, he's an animal. Spirit. Spirit, animal, species, breed, name. The last thing they are is the breed and the name.

So when I rehabilitate a dog, what I'm doing is bringing back the happy spirit, bringing back the healthy instinct, and bringing back the rules and limitations to the mind, because that's what makes them well behaved — when they understand rules and limitations. No matter what breed they are. So it really doesn't matter if you have a pitbull or a Rottweiler or a German shepherd. It really doesn't matter the race of the human. What matters is whether that person has a happy spirit, a healthy instinct, and a well-educated mind. You want to be a good human, and you want to be part of the pack of good humans.

Andrew Huberman: Certainly raising and living with Costello taught me a lot about how to sense people's energy. I had an amazing experience with him that I want to share briefly, because it was something I tried on the basis of what I read in your book.

I was walking him and sometimes he didn't want to walk in a particular direction. He was always walked to my side or a little bit behind me. I had that going from a very early point. I practiced no look, no touch, no speak in the first minutes of contact or coming home. But at one point, I decided to try something that seemed kind of wacky to me at the time. We were having a great stride on the walk. He was smelling things, but we were moving on. And I decided to just send him approval energy. I'm just going to think it and feel it. I'm going to send him some energy. We're just walking. I did not change where I was looking. I did not change, as far as I know, the tension on the leash. And he just looks right up at me. I was like, "This is incredible."

After a really good day of hiking or at work — he used to come to the lab with me — we'd be sitting, or I was cooking, and every once in a while, while doing something else, I would just send him this positive energy. And he would look over at me. It was wild. I realized he's sensing things that are beyond my words. In fact, I don't know that he ever really listened to what I said terribly much. He could really feel what I was feeling.

I also had the experience of when he was doing something I didn't like, I could send him disapproval. And he would stop. We were meters away from each other and I could send him this energy. Now, to you, this is probably like, yes, of course. But I think for most people who have dogs or are thinking about owning a dog, you think this is crazy. But I swear, I could do this in a variety of circumstances — while driving, anything — and he would react according to the energy I was sending.

As a neuroscientist, I can make up some story. Fish have electric sensing fields. I can make up a story in neuroscience that would more or less hold together. But I want to know your impression of what this is, and hopefully that will take us into a discussion about energy exchange between all sorts of beings.

Cesar Millan: Silence is very powerful. The power of prayer. My mom is always connected. When I crossed the border — I jumped the border, and jumping the border is a life and death thing — you give yourself to God. And of course your mom is always thinking about you, so you feel this energy that is done by prayer or by silence. You are what you believe. And so if you believe you can connect and communicate this way, you're going to. The fact that people are not aware of energy — we can feel that a person doesn't feel good, and we don't even know each other. So imagine if we humans are sensitive to that. All animals never stop this way of being. The sensitivity of animals — they don't go into the mind. They stay within the instinct, because that's how they stay safe and maintain the peace.

What you did was exactly that. Don't talk with words. Talk with energy, body language, and intention. How do you become the best doctor in the world? Because that's all you think about. Even when you go to sleep, even when you're not talking about it. That's how you create the law of attraction, the law of creation. The most difficult law is the law of maintenance, because it's easy to attract, it's easy to create. What's hard is to maintain. That's why patience is so important, why silence is so important. It's an infinite energy. If you feel that, imagine how powerful you become. And then just to be right here, claiming your space calm — that gives the animals the capability to trust. And then your intention: what is it that you want, without words? I just don't want you to pee over there. I just don't want you to go after that dog. I just want you to stop doing what you're doing.

Think about when cats communicate with a dog. It's a completely different species, but can a cat control a dog the same way you did? Same silence, calm, confident. That's why a cat can control a Rottweiler and a pitbull. When people feel, "Oh, it's a very dangerous breed" — at the moment you think something is dangerous, you give your power away. At the moment you bring silence, calmness, confidence, you regain your power back. And that's the first line of communication before sound. But most people focus on, "I want to train my dog. I want my dog to listen to commands." No. You want your dog to listen to your silence, to your calmness, to what's in your mind without saying a word.

Andrew Huberman: That was exactly it. The relationship with Costello improved by an order of magnitude when I understood that I could talk to him all day, but it had very little potency compared to how I would show up. And it also taught me a lot about how to arrive home, how to walk into a room. I taught a 400-person class and he would walk in. Everyone would go, "Oh, dog." Most professors wouldn't bring their dog to class. He knew it was all there. Typical Costello — he would just kind of walk to the front of the classroom, wait a few minutes, not look at anybody, and then he would decide. He could light up a room. But I understood that I wouldn't let him be too much of a celebrity, or else he would start misbehaving. I had to remind him: we have a structure and an order.

I do think that people would benefit so much from getting in touch with this capacity to sense their own energy and the energy of other people, regardless of whether they have a dog.

Cesar Millan: Americans go to India to be quiet, to practice not eating — which they call fasting — and to stretch. Practically it is silence, learning how to breathe, and then stretching gives you a little agility. And you learn to control hunger, which in a third world country is what we learn. We learn to control hunger. We learn to be quiet. We learn to be calm. We become really good farmers, really good animal people, family people, God people. We have a good structure, good discipline, and such basic, simple stuff. And that's what gives us the upper hand of walking a dog off leash.

When I started walking dogs in America, I didn't know it was illegal to walk dogs off leash. I was walking 40, 60 dogs at a time, off leash, because that's all I knew. That energy of silence, calmness, confidence is what led me to this — people seeing me from Englewood to South Central. A Mexican guy walking a pack of dogs from Englewood to South Central off leash. That's when the LA Times came and did a piece on me, because they couldn't understand this concept. This dog shaman, walking a dog in the land of the free. Because dogs in America have rights, but that doesn't mean they can walk off leash. The dog has to be on a leash, and humans have to learn to transmit that energy through the leash.

There are a lot of dogs that react on the leash when the dog should be the most well behaved. The leash in the animal world is trust, respect, love. The leash in the animal world is that human understanding — silence, calmness, confidence, love, joy. That's pack leader, direction, protection. That's the only way you can say you're a pack leader, because you are that energy.

Pack position: front, middle, and back of pack

Andrew Huberman: I'm keen on the fact that many people listening don't know how to walk their dog. I'll ask a very simple question first. Should the dog always be next to you or behind you? Is there ever an instance where the dog should walk out in front of you? And as I say this, we both realize many people walk with their dog in front of them.

Cesar Millan: Think about it this way, so people can adopt the concept quicker. If you learn how to walk a dog, it would eliminate 90% of the problems. The other 10% will be rules, boundaries, limitations. When a dog is a pup, he follows his parents, and then he plays, then he explores. But the first activity he learns is to follow. Follow, play, explore. Play and explore become reward activities — that's the Chuck E. Cheese time. And the follow is the one where they learn the rules, boundaries, limitations. They learn to stay focused and not get distracted.

So naturally, early on, dogs need to learn to follow. When they go in front of you, they are in the mind of play or exploration. But if you do this every day, the dog learns that he has to lead you to places.

Andrew Huberman: And is that stressful for the dog?

Cesar Millan: If a dog is middle of the pack or back of the pack, yes. If a dog is front of the pack, no. In order for people to have a front-of-the-pack dog, they need a lot of knowledge. Most dogs are perfect middles or backs. The back should be the easiest one. But when people don't do the right thing with the back, he becomes fearful. The middle of the pack should be the one for families, because they're naturally happy-go-lucky. But if you do too much excitement, they become hyper.

And this is across crossbreeds. It doesn't matter if it's a bulldog or whatever. Every litter has front of the pack, middle of the pack, back of the pack. But there are more back-of-the-pack dogs born as followers than there is only one front-of-the-pack per litter. That's what they call in the breeder world the pick of the litter. In a litter of German shepherds, only one can be a police officer's dog. The others are pet quality, or they call them the run of the litter. Back of the pack is sensitive. Middle of the pack is happy-go-lucky — the HR of the pack. And the front of the pack is the one that gives direction and protection.

Andrew Huberman: Ideally for a family or a typical domestic situation — I'm thinking United States — middle or back of the pack?

Cesar Millan: Middle.

Andrew Huberman: A family who has never raised a dog together?

Cesar Millan: Middle.

Andrew Huberman: How can you assess the litter when you see them, so that you pick a middle-of-the-pack dog?

Cesar Millan: The front of the pack will be very easy to assess because he's going to be the biggest one. He's going to be the one moving the sisters and brothers away from the mom. He's already going to practice dominance. The middle is the second to get to the mother. And the back of the pack — they always wait. They're more shy naturally. They're just sensitive.

Andrew Huberman: What if you don't have access to the interaction with the mother? Sometimes you just see the puppies and the mom's in another room. Should you ask to watch the interaction? And if you can't, how can you assess if you're just looking?

Cesar Millan: Normally, if you're in a situation, the breeder knows, because that's what they put ribbons for — color ribbons so they know, okay, this is middle, this is back. Even though they don't call them that way, they just call them run of the litter, pet quality, front of the pack. And the front of the pack is just the obvious one.

When you go inside where the puppies are and there's no mother, just stay quiet. Every time you present something new, you're going to see the more confident ones coming to it, the more happy-go-lucky ones coming to it, and the back of the pack won't get close to anything new. It can just be a pillow — the first time they experience a pillow. The front of the pack will go to it. The middle of the pack will go and play. It's hardwired. It's there. That's why you can guarantee good behavior. Because now you can say, "I want a middle-of-the-pack border collie. I want a middle-of-the-pack golden retriever. I want a middle-of-the-pack pitbull." You can have it. That's going to guarantee you exactly what you want. It's going to be easier for you to tell them what to do, because he was born naturally a follower.

Versus if you get a front-of-the-pack, whatever breed — Chihuahua, I don't care what it is — they're born with the disposition of giving direction and protection. So whoever lives with them needs to have more knowledge. That's me running a pack of dogs and having different animals. The animals know that I have a big energy. They don't know I have 43 acres. They just know I have the land and that I'm in charge of it.

And all the ups and downs I've been through — the divorces and all of that stuff — I find my silence, my calmness, my confidence, my love, my joy right back. They know my energy is big. So I can have a front-of-the-pack dog. But I don't have one. I have middles and backs.

Andrew Huberman: Even you.

Cesar Millan: Even me. Because it would require so much. I would need to find him a job — like border patrol, something like that, looking for the bad guys. Just one officer and one dog. He doesn't need the pack.

Andrew Huberman: I'm sure like many people listening, I'm trying to figure out whether Costello was front of the pack. I think he was. He was an enormous dog. When I went to pick him up — I had met him as a three-week-old puppy — he was the one butting all the other ones out, eating from their food bowls. He didn't yelp, didn't yap at all. He just ate everything, took everything, peed where he wanted to, did everything.

So it was a difficult thing raising him. This new one, Strummer, who's four and a half months — he's definitely middle, maybe even back of the pack. He was second out when he was born, and they said, "Oh, he's going to be the pick of the litter." But definitely not. He quickly kept a little bit of distance. He is very sensitive.

Cesar Millan: That's good. Much sweeter. Much more playful.

Andrew Huberman: And that's the part I have to work with, because they enchant us. I noticed with Strummer that if he gets into play mode, it lights me up, and then I have to remember to stay in my proper place, because I'm trying to teach him the order of things. It's very important because I want to be able to bring him anywhere, leave him in a room alone with little kids, and trust completely that he's not going to accidentally do something.

For people that want to learn to sense their own energy and use their energy field, should they also be asking whether they are front, middle, or back of pack — the human?

Cesar Millan: Yeah. In the human world, this is a little bit of a sensitive topic, because every guy wants to say, "Yeah, I'm an alpha." Everyone thinks that way. I like to think that in different circumstances, people can move up or down the human hierarchy. But can you explain what it is to observe oneself honestly and where one really lies? It's a hierarchy, but that makes it sound like one is better. It just is what it is. You're either front, middle, or back of pack.

That's their special magic, right? Being back of the pack means they master calm surrender. So we have to learn to master calm surrender. That's our more sensitive state of mind. When I'm assessing and evaluating a dog, I go into my calm surrender state. I go to the back of the pack. When it's time for me to give direction and protection, I go to the front of the pack. When I achieve whatever I need to achieve, I go into the middle of the pack.

So the human can take advantage of these positions, these states of mind. The back-of-the-pack dog is going to tell you, "I'm here to master calm surrender." It doesn't mean he doesn't do happy-go-lucky, but he can never do calm confident. Back of pack can't do front of pack. Never.

Andrew Huberman: And are we talking humans and dogs now?

Cesar Millan: It's important to understand that a dog is born with a position. The human can go from whatever position he was born to different positions. Because there are a lot of scientists who are very brilliant on one side, but when it comes to a dog, the dog takes over.

Andrew Huberman: Or even just at a coffee shop — they become a smaller version of themselves. Not because they're weak, it's just not their domain of expertise.

Cesar Millan: Correct. Or they turn on one energy more than the other. A lot of these people turn on more of the affection energy. And affection or love energy in the animal world is not a strong energy.

No look, no touch, no speak — and why affection must come last

Andrew Huberman: Tell me more about that, because I practiced your recommendation of no look, no touch, no speak when I got home. Most difficult thing for people to do. They get home and the dog's super happy to see them, tail wagging, excited, and I'm like, "I'm going to ignore my dog." This feels like abuse. But I'd come in, do my thing, and then after some period of time I'd say hey. And what I realized is that every time after that, I'd come home and he was calm. He was excited to see me, but he was calm. Never jumping up and touching me. Never jumping up and touching anyone else. But if someone came over and they were super excited, it almost would confuse him. Like, this is not how people enter the space.

Cesar Millan: Exactly. Every time you leave an animal behind walls, the animal is going to go excited or anxious. Not always what you're greeting is a happy dog. Most of the time, what you're greeting is an excited, anxious dog that is confused.

It's very important — when people see dogs greet another dog, there is no excitement. There is respect. They wait until the front of the pack allows them to come in. They can't just come into their intimate space. So it's a ritual. There are three rituals that are very important for people to master with no touch, no talking, no eye contact. One is the meeting — every time you meet a dog, always remind them about safe peace: nose, eyes, ears, trust, respect first. Then is the walk — the dog right next to you, following you, quiet. And then when you feed. Those three activities are very meaningful to dogs, but it all starts with the meeting, the greeting. Every time you reunite, you have to remind your dog that you are a source of safety and peace, of trust and respect, of nose, eyes, ears.

Andrew Huberman: Dissect nose, eyes, ears for us, because most people — especially in the US and Northern Europe — are just speaking constantly. "Hi, hi, hi." This is not the best way to communicate with a dog who you are and what you're about and what the trust relationship is.

Cesar Millan: It creates excitement. It creates a dog that learns to greet people with excitement. So if you greet your dog with excitement, you are the source of that to other humans. He's going to greet all humans excited. He's going to jump on people. Not everybody wants a dog that doesn't belong to them to jump on them.

When a dog is born, he's born with the nose open. Fifteen days later, they open the eyes. Twenty-one days later, they open the ears. This is scientific — it's in all the encyclopedias. That means a dog met his parents through the nose, then the eyes, then the ears. But when people want to do ears, eyes, nose, they want to create a human. They want the dog to understand the way you and I understand, "Hey, how are you doing?" But we can control that excitement, at least some people can. It's a different ritual for us. We believe in parties, we believe in parades. For a horse to go to New York is a very exciting place. It takes conditioning, because no horse will ever volunteer going to New York. You're bringing him to a very excited environment where his instincts say flight.

Andrew Huberman: Recently there have been these problems — I don't know if you saw — a couple of the carriages in Central Park took off. Someone was killed recently. There's a whole debate going on now about whether this is good or bad for these horses. But it's clear, regardless of where one sits on the debate, that you can't take the instinct out of the animal. There are triggers that will send them over an edge.

Cesar Millan: You have to make sure you keep an eye on how the spirit of the horse is, whether the instinct of the horse is healthy, whether the spirit is happy. Because when they just go into the habit of working, working, working, even a police dog can crash. Even a police dog can bite a police officer because they're overworked.

Andrew Huberman: I have a few friends from the special operations community. They work with these dogs that jump out of planes — the Malinois. And several of those guys have told me that with those dogs, you cannot ever let up your guard as the leader. In fact, a few guys who got a little soft with them — one anecdote was they decided to invite the dog in to watch a movie with them one night. He let the dog get a little too close to him during the movie. The next day he got bit. And it's like they're constantly trying to move up the hierarchy. He said, "It sucks because you fall in love with these animals, but you have to constantly keep the relationship in its proper place or they'll try and take your position."

Cesar Millan: They don't try. That's the thing with animals. They don't try. They just do. There is no knowledge behind instinct. It's all reaction. At the moment your energy goes down, bam. They keep an eye on your energy. And at the same time, these kinds of dogs are always kept at a high level of excitement. They keep them vigilant. They don't know how to turn it off.

So to create a great home family dog, it's no look, no touch, no speak in the first couple of minutes of contact, until the dog becomes peaceful and calm and open-minded. Surrender means the mind is open. Once the mind opens up, you can teach whatever you want — such as waiting, such as being calm.

Andrew Huberman: What if somebody has an anxious dog right now? They haven't been doing this and the dog is pawing at them and running around. Should the person just stay completely in that calm space, moving about and ignoring them? Or should they be physically giving a "get off me" type signal?

Cesar Millan: This also has to do with how much physical exercise the dog has received. How long is his walk? Most people walk 20, 30 minutes. That's not enough, and the dog ends up in the house for 23 and a half hours. In my opinion, it borders on abuse. It's really incredibly hard on an animal. People say, "I love my dog," and my first question is, "How long do you walk them?"

Andrew Huberman: What is your recommendation? I realize it varies by breed and by age.

Cesar Millan: It depends on the energy of the dog. Not because a dog is back of the pack does it mean they don't have high level energy. Even the back-of-the-pack sled dogs have to have the same level of stamina as the one in the front. So just because it's a back-of-the-pack dog doesn't mean it's a couch potato. You have to understand the levels of energy they're born with — low, medium, high.

A lot of times people say, "Oh, bulldogs are couch potatoes." No, you can have a bulldog that is absolutely athletic and has the stamina to go. Two minimum 30-minute walks per day, as much as a couple of hours twice a day, with a backpack on — obviously the dog is a little older — because the backpack adds that extra half hour. Now the dog is carrying something.

Andrew Huberman: A weighted backpack. How should one assess the percentage of body weight?

Cesar Millan: In the beginning, you can just put a backpack on because psychologically they don't want to wear anything — a leash, a collar, a muzzle, boots, it doesn't matter. Psychologically that drains them, because they've got to get used to it. So you walk until the dog surrenders to it, and then you take it off, and the mind will become very drained. Once the dog gets used to it, then you start putting weight. You can start with five pounds. Remember, every time you add something, you challenge the mind. And the goal is simply for the mind to surrender. The body is going to become calm because it's wasting energy. So your job literally every day with a dog is to empty the tank.

Andrew Huberman: Empty the tank.

Cesar Millan: A tired dog is never going to give you problems. Ever. He doesn't have the energy to give you problems. And then on top of that, you create rules and limitations — such as, just put food right here, but you can't touch it. The mind has to be disciplined not to touch it. The mind has to learn instead of doing this to do that. And that requires self-discipline.

If you tell a dog, "Don't touch it" — don't touch the human, don't touch the food, don't touch the cat — they go into a calm surrender state and they wait.

Andrew Huberman: The first thing I taught Strummer was to suppress action, just as a general theme. He learned it right away at eight weeks. It took about a day, maybe even half a day, because I had learned the hard way with Costello. He was much more stubborn. I could set food down as an eight-week-old puppy because we went through the training process. He's not touching it until he looks at me. I can walk around the room. I can do whatever I want. He's tracking. And then when I say "okay," then he's going to eat.

I'll just mention there's an inhibition from the forebrain down to the brain regions that control impulses — what we call top-down inhibition, which is neuroscience speak for what you're describing practically. And I feel like it carries over to other circumstances more easily. I can put food in front of him now and leave the room. I come back, he's not going to touch it. And then he starts to eat.

Now, it's a little bit more difficult with things like trying to teach him not to be mouthy. I have a rule: no skin in dog's mouth. It's all or none. Make it simple. When it's really cute when they're a puppy, those teeth are a little sharp, but I just have a thick black line. My girlfriend knows this too. She's like, "No, but he wants to play." It's like, no skin goes in his mouth. That's a simple rule. And if he does happen to go for skin, I'll do the little yelp thing. He understands right away.

So if people hear this, they're going to be like, "This is terrible. You're putting food in front of him and he wants to eat and you're not letting him." But could you elaborate on why this is so important to the dog's happiness and well-being?

Cesar Millan: Well, you know, every time you leave an animal behind walls, the animal is going to go excited or anxious. Not always what you're greeting is a happy dog. Most of the time, what you're greeting is an excited, anxious dog that is confused. So it's very important — when people see dogs greet another dog, there is no excitement. There is respect.

Andrew Huberman: Let's stay on the walk for a moment. What is so critical about the structured walk? I've been doing two hours a day or so of structured walk since he was little. And people say that's too much for a puppy.

Cesar Millan: They forget instinct. They forget that a dog instinctually is going to follow his parents to find food and water. They do it after two months of age, because otherwise they will stay within the den. But from two to four months, they follow, and somebody's always taking care of them. You can see it in the African wild dogs — there's always somebody that supervises the litter, but they allow them to follow. And then as soon as the dog gets into six, eight months of age, that dog wants to walk more than 30 minutes, guaranteed. He doesn't want to stay in one place too long.

So all these people with their dogs home all day — some people say, "Well, the dog has the yard, running around the yard." It's not the same. Being able to run around a yard becomes like the zoo. It's an animal in the zoo with a yard. That's not natural. That's just practical for the human. The dog is going in circles. Exercise for a bird is flying. Exercise for a fish is swimming. And a dog has to walk. It's just the nature of each species.

So the walk is the most important activity in my eyes. Look at the homeless people with their dogs. Why can they walk a dog off leash? The dog that lives with the blind is not allowed to get distracted because his purpose is to guide the blind. And the dog that lives with the homeless — consciously or unconsciously, the dog stays in the back. Nine out of ten homeless people have a pitbull and the dog is well behaved, off leash.

Andrew Huberman: I see a lot of them in my neighborhood. This is Los Angeles. Incredible.

Cesar Millan: In Mexico, every single dog in a third world country is off leash. In America, the American dream for a lot of people is to have a dog walk off leash, because people pay a trainer to train their dog to be off leash. But this is the nature of the animal. It doesn't make any sense once you hear it. You just have to help them by practicing the ritual of no touch, no talk, no eye contact. Let the dog be calm and surrendered in front of you. Make sure during the walk he's also in the same state of mind. And before you feed him, do this for at least three weeks. So you get into this habit — when you greet, when you walk, and when you feed. Then this dog is going to have this beautiful silence, calm, surrender. And this is the dog you bring into dog parks or dog beaches. And then your job is to make sure that the dog your dog is going to play with has the same energy as your dog. You have to be selective, just like with kids.

The structured walk, exercise, and the dog as a mirror

Andrew Huberman: I've followed your recommendation with Costello and also with Strummer — exercise, discipline, and then affection. For many people, they're going to hear that and it's going to be like, "But I don't want to walk first thing in the morning. I want to cuddle with my dog first thing in the morning."

My household now — I had to be really clear that if we don't follow this, we're damaging the opportunities for Strummer. We're actually hurting his psychological well-being. The only hard part with him is he doesn't necessarily like to wake up early, but sometimes we have to walk him early. So it takes a little bit of extra encouragement. The day always starts with a walk, then discipline training, then food, and then some affection. But it's not hours of cuddling on the couch. I mean, I love him. I would love to pick him up and treat him like a little baby much more often than I do. But I just see the incredible results that come from this exercise, discipline, and then affection.

Cesar Millan: Which is living a natural life as love. We want them to live as naturally as possible. And that's love in my eyes — exercise, discipline. Discipline is not punishment, because that's a word that when dog people hear it, they put it as punishment. You're just making sure the dog follows the rules and limitations, follows a structure. That's what we call discipline. And that's how we achieve becoming well behaved or achieving success, because we have to be disciplined.

A lot of times what I end up helping people with is understanding the word, so the word doesn't block them from doing the right thing. Your job as a pet parent — because now the title is pet parent — is direction, protection, then love. But most dog people want to do affection, affection, affection. And when it should be exercise, discipline, affection — body, mind, heart.

Andrew Huberman: I think the walking part is so key. And I'll just say it — I think most people are just lazy. They don't want to walk. And if they walk, they don't want to do it without talking on their phone or looking at their phone. And the dog can sense if your energy is on the walk or somewhere else.

Cesar Millan: Well, you're either connected or you're disconnected. But you're on a flexi leash with a harness on and you're on the phone.

Andrew Huberman: Which are the worst.

Cesar Millan: Yeah. It's the moment where you are connected to mother nature and through the dog. People now say, "You see, God is dog backwards." You're connected to spirit and you're connected to earth, but you can't be connected to technology. The phone is for connection, communication, relationship. So does the dog — connection, communication, relationship to God, to earth, to you. And so you create that triangle and the dog is inside that bubble. This human is really respecting God. This human is really respecting earth. This human is really respecting the moment. So you create this vibe, and the dog is in a follower state. He's going to imitate the energy that you're in. And what is prayer? An imitation of everybody doing the same energy.

Andrew Huberman: I find it so fascinating that your relationship to dogs has opened up this understanding of human behavior — but not just how we behave, but how we relate to the entire world. The energetics keeps coming up in our discussion.

I want to touch on something you mentioned before we started recording, which is that in a third world country, people are aware of death very early on, and so the connection to the spiritual comes first and all the rest follows. The complete inversion of somebody like me who was born in Northern California — Silicon Valley, they can call it that — where you learn everything through logical structures and science. Even if one loves poetry and music, the order is through the bricks on the ground first. And there's no concept of death until your grandparent dies or an animal dies or something.

Tell me about this relationship to death and how it structures the psyche and the energy of people in third world countries, because I think it's going to be extremely useful to people regardless of where they live.

Cesar Millan: I think that's the first step — to learn not to be afraid of death. That's the first step. In America, they don't want anything to die, but it's just what it is. Bird life and death. In the Mexican culture, we have the Day of the Dead. So we learn to be okay with it. We learn to accept it. In Mexico, or in a third world country, death is everywhere. You can see it everywhere. I'm from the north of Mexico and you see people with chopped heads hung up, and you go to school and people are dead. So what do you end up doing in that moment? Well, you end up believing that God will protect you. That's your spirituality.

And just like if you don't want a person to break into your house, you get a dog. So mother nature protects you. For us, when we grow up seeing death everywhere, we learn to surrender to this higher power. And we are what you believe. So it's really good, in our experience, to be able to surrender to that. But at the same time, we also surrender that somebody's going to give us direction, protection, love — the same thing as a pack leader. And we surrender to earth giving us food and taking care of earth. It's a combination of spirituality and instincts in a third world country.

So it's almost like people in third world countries see the reality of death early and they place themselves in a hierarchy. They look upward. Often times these are religious people. My father's from Argentina, and it's a Catholic country. Latinos by design are taught to put spirit first, then second is mother nature. And then you have to go to work — job is number three. And then you love the family, and love is at the end. God first, earth second, and then family or work. Here in the United States, we're raised very differently. And it's also this idea that stuff is the portal to happiness.

Andrew Huberman: Having a phone, having access. Yeah, a lot of shoes.

Cesar Millan: I grew up with one pair of shoes. So how do we stay happy? It becomes a belief system. And that belief system has helped a lot of people I know to stay happy. It's just happy people with nothing — which is the key. You first have to learn to be happy, healthy, loving, smart with nothing. Then when you have something, you're already happy, healthy, loving, smart, and it just adds into your accomplishments. But animals don't understand money, fame, power. Animals understand natural, simple, profound. That's the part I grew up in.

Natural, simple, profound. Natural is your instinct. Simple is to love. Profound is your spirit. Even if you're not smart, you can still be natural, simple, profound and have an amazing relationship with animals. Even if you don't know how to read, you don't know where Europe is, you can still have an amazing relationship with God and with mother nature and with your family. And therefore, if you're good to those three, you're good to you.

Andrew Huberman: I used to joke because I'd bring Costello to my lab with me — a lab of about 15 people. I'd walk in with him and he'd go around. He liked walking into the lab. He'd see all the students and people working. He used to bring his toy around to each of them sitting at their desk to try and get them to play. He was part of the lab, and people really loved him. But I used to look at him sometimes and think, he doesn't care that I'm the professor.

Cesar Millan: He doesn't care. That's the best part about this relationship. He doesn't care. He just wants to be together. He wants his walks. He just wants to be around the joy of a family, a laboratory. He just wants to be part of this.

Andrew Huberman: And it really helped me to just remove the concept that he even knew what roles were or jobs were. It was just this place we went. I think dogs are a wonderful way to look at the world differently and realize both how different we are as a species, but also that all these things we've created — jobs are important, obviously — but to not project that onto him. And it's also very useful to not project that onto people in the world. I knew people who were very prominent in their field, and the way they'd go into a room was almost like they were disappointed because people weren't feeding them the adoration they felt they deserved. But no one cares, right? Because they're in their own experience.

Your book and these teachings taught me a lot about human energetics. We're not dogs, so we can't just transfer that in. But it taught me that most of the time when we think we're operating from a place of knowledge and roles, there's something that's been constructed by humans — like a uniform to show this person's in charge. You take that stuff away and it's a very different kind of interaction. Who's this person? What are they about? What moves them forward or back? Are they a good person or a bad person? Are they scared?

Cesar Millan: When I go to people's homes, the human tells you the story and the dog tells you the truth. Just by looking at them. The dog immediately tells you: this is the energy we feel, this is the philosophy we practice, and these are the actions we do. The dog is always the most honest member of your house. They don't know how to lie.

So I listen to the human because I need to understand where this human is stuck. And through that conversation I go, "Okay, what about if we think about silence? You like silence? Okay, silence is part of the spiritual world. And what about calmness? I think I'm calm. Okay, let's breathe." And then I change the instinctual world just by breathing. And then I start giving information so the intellectual world is more simple, more clear — nose, eyes, ears, rules and limitations. I'm just giving this simple information so your mind knows how to execute.

And then when do I love? Hold on, just wait. And then when the dog goes calm — now that's when you love. Because I want to teach people to love silence, to love calmness, to love an open mind. Because people have learned to love an excited dog, an anxious dog, a dog that was a victim.

If you rescue a dog and the dog was in a bad situation, that person goes and rescues the dog because he feels bad. And then that same person starts telling everybody in the family what happened to that dog. So now the whole entire family feels bad for the dog. They describe the dog by describing the past. So they learn to love the past because they feel sorry for this dog. So the dog is now fearful, controlling the house, doesn't listen to the humans.

At the moment I grab the same dog and bring him to the ranch and give him silence, calmness, and being part of the pack — that dog changes. They live in the moment. What happened to the past, a month ago, a year ago, is irrelevant. What's relevant is how do you treat him now? And the only thing they need to become good is a safe, peaceful environment, a trust-and-respect human, with exercise, discipline, or mental stimulation and activities. Then the love comes at the end. Safe, peace, trust, respect, love, exercise, discipline, affection. Love is number three. It's a reward.

How do you stay happy? Be grateful. How do you stay healthy? Learn how to breathe and do exercise. How do you stay smart? Learn, achieve, and give it away. Or learn to turn your mind off. So when do I practice love? Practice love once you master your spirit, your instinct, and your mind. Then love those three things about you. Love your silence, your faith, your calmness, your trust, and then your confidence, your mind. Love that.

Can dogs smell stress? Energy, electricity, and the animal's sixth sense

Andrew Huberman: Can dogs smell stress?

Cesar Millan: Yeah, they feel stress. It smells. But remember, it's the feeling of the energy you have inside — your electricity. You're not functioning normally, and that same energy is going to create a chemistry. You're going to sweat. It's just going to go into the nose, eyes, ears. But first, before the nose, eyes, ears, just the animal in them is going to sense it. When an earthquake is about to come, they sense it way before it trembles. That energy of mother nature is shifting at such a high, low level of sensitivity, and then we see it, then we hear things.

Andrew Huberman: Humans are so obsessed with dog intelligence that looks like our intelligence. Like if I see another video of how many words a dog can learn, or dogs doing tricks or walking on their hind legs — none of that impresses me. I also like cephalopods, octopuses. I have a couple of them actually, and I'm fascinated by them. People think they're extremely intelligent, and they may be, but I'm interested in their intelligence. You can find a video of a guy who taught an octopus to play a piano. But if you look at the training process, it was just shaping — reward this and reward that. That video, I'll go on record saying, is totally unimpressive to me. It tells you far more about the trainer's willingness to painstakingly shape an animal than it does about octopuses at all.

Humans seem obsessed with transferring our first-world understanding of what intelligence and knowledge and skill is onto other species. And it's crazy. It doesn't reveal anything except our own short-sightedness and stubbornness about being unwilling to think about these other ways of communication and moving through the world.

Cesar Millan: Is that self-oriented first versus pack-oriented? What the pack needs versus what you want? So that's where the human just wants a baby, for example, and they get a dog. Humanizing a dog — is it good for the dog? No. It's good for the human, for the human fantasy and emotional fulfillment. But is it good for the dog to be a human? Why would he want to be a human? Why don't they try doing the same thing with a cat? Because what they say is, "He's a cat." So you can't humanize a cat. The cat sends the human away, because a cat only comes whenever he wants to come. You can't influence anybody who doesn't want to be with you.

The dog — you have to teach him to live without you. He has to learn to keep you at a distance because he's pack-oriented. You can influence a dog much quicker than you influence a cat. You can't influence anybody who doesn't want to follow you.

Andrew Huberman: How do you feel about cats?

Cesar Millan: I love cats. I love all animals. I was going to invite you to the ranch because we have all the species and we can assess and evaluate your dog better — with the chickens and the dogs and the different species. So we can see the prey drive, and you can see: do you have a dog with prey drive and how do we block it? Or do you have a dog with play drive and you just leave it open?

Andrew Huberman: I'd love to bring Strummer out there. It's a good place because your dog gets to interact not just with dogs but with other species that trigger that prey drive. Very important, because what makes your dog social is that he learns to accept others. I don't want a dog that has a protective drive. I just want a dog that accepts everybody. And that's a dog that is going to give you zero lawsuits, zero liability.

Cesar Millan: Yeah. And it can be a dog that was not meant for protection, but because he doesn't have rules and limitations, he doesn't walk every day, and every day the dog is bored, confused, or frustrated. And then he releases that because he's a predator — a dog by nature is a predator. They're going to move forward to release energy. But you want them to move forward with the right state of mind, or when you tell the dog to move forward. That's just discipline. But people don't have that kind of understanding, and the dog ends up doing whatever they want.

Human energy, calm assertive leadership, and preparing before you walk through the door

Andrew Huberman: As humans, we project so much onto other species, other people. And in the backdrop of everything we're talking about, I'm hoping that people are seeing the ways in which they can show up in circumstances with more calmness. Especially if it's not reflexive. Before every episode, I pray. I ask for certain things. I try to open up certain things, realizing not all of this is under our control. And I try to invite certain things in. So it's not reflexive. I do it as a discipline. I'm happy to do it.

But I think people assume that you're either calm or you're an anxious person. People assume that their dog is either calm or anxious. This is a terrible misconception. I think we can become calmer regardless of where we are in our natural levels of anxiety.

Cesar Millan: Our animals will never choose an anxious life. We're the only species that follows unstable leaders. To be the pack leader in the animal world, you have to be the most patient, the most calm, the most confident, the most loving, the most joyful. Everything has to be at 100%. Then you can be a pack leader. And your job is to resolve problems. The least thing you can do is bring problems. Anxiety, fear, insecurities — that's something you bring back home. You don't want that.

So before people hit the door coming home, they should do a check-in. Do a little prayer. God, just let me be silence, calm, confident, love, and joy to my dog. I want to practice no touching, no eye contact, and just help my dog to calm down. And then I'm going to give him affection. I'm not saying that to withhold affection. I'm just saying give affection to patience and calmness and an open mind. Because when your dog misbehaves, you want him to go back to his good state of mind. You don't want the dog to do fight, flight, avoidance. Those are the bad states of mind. The good state of mind is patience, calm surrender, or happy-go-lucky. Those are good states of mind.

Andrew Huberman: I think a lot of people, deep down, probably like that their dog is so happy to see them at the end of the day, because many people feel devoid of real love and connection. And the idea that their fur baby — I really don't like this term. They're not babies. Yes, they have fur, but out of respect for animals, we have to remember that they're animals first. When I first heard you say their spirit, animal, species, breed, name — it was so helpful for me.

In science, I've worked with humans and worked with animals. I stopped working with animals because it was really hard on my soul. Even just the way that people would start to talk about animals — like "we work on them," not "with them." And I started to realize we use words to either dehumanize or humanize animals, and both are terrible. So when I heard you give this description of spirit, animal, etc., I was like, he's saying don't humanize these animals because it makes them feel unsafe or confused.

Cesar Millan: Yeah. And years later, with all due respect to biomedical research and the need to make discoveries, I do think there's too much animal research that's unnecessary. But I realized there we're dehumanizing animals. Because I had this incredible contradiction in my mind. It was a real soul dilemma. I love Costello. He was a family member. I was willing to do all this work on myself and with him. But in my profession, I was observing things where I thought, this is not okay. And I stopped. I'm going to work with humans. Even saying "I work on humans" — you hear scientists say this. It's terrible. And I think words matter to humans because they shape how we behave.

Andrew Huberman: I'm noticing a theme throughout today where you have words and simple ways for people to remember — no look, no touch, no speak; exercise, discipline, then affection. That's telling people stuff in people language. But the level you're really interested in and trying to convey is the animal experience and then the spiritual experience. I think this structure will be very useful to people because we're going high level and low level all the time.

So if people could start to think about themselves this way and think about their animals — why not? I think a lot of people are going to say, "Oh no, I come home and I want to be loved by my fur babies." But I think people genuinely want their animal to feel safe. They want their animal to feel secure, number one. And when I think about real love, it's about safety and security first.

Cesar Millan: The other day I was in the hospital visiting a friend, and the woman behind the counter said she has two Frenchies. I said, "Well, you work long shifts." She goes, "Yeah, they're home alone. I come home and they're pooping and peeing. I feel so guilty." And she said flat out, "I can't do it. There's no way I could come home and they're going crazy and excited to see me and I couldn't just pick them up and hold them."

But it's making them anxious. She's nurturing the same nurse that is helping humans to be healthy — she's helping her dogs to be unhealthy. It's so contrary. She's helping other species, but the species she's in love with, she is not. Because the story she's accepting in her head — she's agreeing with it. She has so much guilt that she can't stop it. She's trying to numb her guilt.

Andrew Huberman: When I was growing up, most people didn't have dogs in our neighborhood. Now everyone's got a dog. It's like having a phone. This doesn't seem like a good thing.

Cesar Millan: It is a great thing for me because I love to teach people about energy, philosophy, and actions. I want people to have trust, respect, love — the most incredible relationship with a dog — because a dog really makes you a good human if you do things right. And then once you practice that, you can just give it to other humans, because it makes it tangible. Is energy real? Yeah. What about if I have a good philosophy that really works? Yeah, it works. What about if my actions are good? That really works. Now you combine the three and watch what your dog does. And then you go and do the same thing with other humans. You create this beautiful trust, respect, love with humans — connection, communication, relationship. You go and create safe, peace, and love environments.

Horse people are really good about safety. The priority in the horse world is not love. The priority is safety. So a horse person is going to teach a child: don't scream, no touching, no talk, no eye contact. The kid will learn that with a horse you have to be quiet, calm, and wait until the horse gives you the signal. And the same person will go and teach the kid with dogs as if you can just pet him. But in the horse world, safety is number one.

How do they walk a horse? The horse is right next to the human, never in front. You can see a little kid walking a horse, and the horse is behind the kid, not in front of the kid. But first is the meeting. And then the third thing is feeding the horse. If the horse is too excited, don't put the hay yet. Wait until the horse comes down. Then the hay goes down. The meeting, the walk, and the feeding. Incredible.

And they're big, so we have this natural respect for them that people don't necessarily have for a dog. But a dog can bite. Why not have that respect for someone that we say is man's best friend? The dog has the best titles of all the animals on earth. But when it comes to the actions, we don't honor the dog because we want the dog to be a human. We don't respect the dog because we want the dog to be a human. When you honor and respect somebody, you honor who they are. You respect who they are. You learn about how they are, and that's what you love. You love who they are. You don't love what you think. You love who they are. And you don't try to project that they're somebody else.

Andrew Huberman: I think some people will hear some of what we're talking about today and say, "Oh, well, that's how I should become the pack leader with people. I should never let anyone walk through a door before me." But the point you're trying to make is that human to human is different than animal to human. You don't just transfer the same things. Some things transfer, but other things don't.

I've worked with non-human primates before. A lot of people will go to the zoo and smile at the monkey, or go like, "Eat, eat." For a macaque monkey, bearing teeth is aggression. A friend of mine, she's an animal behaviorist, and she said, "Oh no. If you want to do an affiliative behavior with a monkey, you lip smack." And people go, "Oh," but you could tell somebody that a hundred times and they'll still smile at the monkey. It's like we want to project our own understanding of what we think is going on. Even in the presence of knowledge.

Your dog is going to feel more safe and secure and happy if you come in with no look, no touch, no speak. There's something about the human brain where we just want to project, "No, but I want my experience." And it's an incredibly selfish thing. It was really the realization for me. It's very selfish of me to come home and want a certain kind of interaction with my pet Costello, but to put the interaction in the terms that work for me.

I waited until I had the finances, until I had a home. I desperately wanted an animal for so long since I was a little kid. I knew at the time when I got him that it was the right time. But I had to be very careful because I wanted it to go so well that I found myself projecting. And then I read your book and I realized: if I want this to go really well, I have to get out of my understanding of what I need on my terms and start thinking about what he needs and what I need in his language. And it was like a light bulb went off.

This is really a statement of gratitude that hopefully will be informative for people, because the human brain just says, "No, I want to be loved, so I'm going to do this thing that's actually harming the thing that I say is my fur baby." No one would ever hurt their fur babies, but they're doing it. By projecting human stuff.

Cesar Millan: Yeah. It's about safe, peace, trust, respect. Once you have those two pillars, then you bring the love, because that's what you want to love. You want to love the trust and respect. Not because you love people, you trust them. Not because you love people, you respect them. Love is its own energy, its own identity. But you want to love trust. You want to love respect. That's what you want to love.

You want to love a place where you feel safe and peace. That's the land part. And then the relationship — trust, respect. Then the way you experience the world: body, mind, heart. At least those three things, just do it that way. Put love at the end. It won't hurt you. It will only make you wiser. It will only make you more patient, more calm. And you will see the outcome.

The reason I said no touch, no talk, no eye contact is because if you want to touch a back-of-the-pack dog, he's going to run away. If you give eye contact to a front-of-the-pack dog, it means fight — exactly like with the monkeys. When you're looking at somebody, you want to touch him. And when you talk to a middle-of-the-pack dog, you're going to get him very excited. So if you practice no touch, no talk, no eye contact to any position of the pack, what you're going to allow is nose, eyes, ears to come to you. You're going to create the law of attraction. The dog is going to come to your smell. And then he's going to assess and evaluate: Can I trust? Can I respect? Do I feel safe? Are you a peaceful human? That's what you want them to know about you.

As soon as the dog gives you that — sits right next to you, relaxes — that's when you give love. There's nothing wrong with waiting a little bit. You're just following the steps. You are the one who's being disciplined. To be a good leader, you have to be a good follower. You have to understand the power of calm surrender. You have to understand the power of patience. If you don't understand that, you're going to be a terrible leader.

I'm not telling people to be a pack leader just because they're the dog owner. I'm telling you what it requires to be a pack leader. The highest level of patience, the highest level of calmness, the highest level of confidence, and then knowing when to give love and when to celebrate. Love, joy — it's a celebration energy.

What do we want from our pack leaders, like politicians? We want an America that feels safe and peaceful. We want a Mexico that feels safe and peaceful. We want a Colombia that feels safe and peaceful. We want a Venezuela that feels safe and peaceful. Otherwise, we can't feel the love. We want somebody that we trust and respect so we can love them. That's what we want. It's our instinct to want this. It's our spirit to want this.

Leadership, politics, and the energy that can't be faked

Andrew Huberman: These days, most leaders of countries seem to get there by projecting the most confidence that nothing can phase them. That seems to be the competition on both sides of the political aisle — who is more certain of the statement they're making. This seems to be the thing we select for, not the traits you're describing. I think we can all look around and see how that's going.

Cesar Millan: We can learn a lot from animals. I think all leaders should show us themselves with a pack of dogs so we can assess and evaluate their energy. Because they say the philosophy we want to hear. They always talk great about the intellectual part people want to hear. But then the energy and then the actions — that's what we end up seeing at the end. Look at Mexico. We always said, "Oh, a woman president — Mexico is going to be well taken care of." Same — no safe, no peace, no trust, no respect. It's a continuation of the same philosophy. But they all say great things.

I don't lie to dogs. I say, "Listen, I'm going to bring back your silence, your calmness, your surrender. That's my contribution to you, because your humans made you fight, flight, avoidance." And boom — I don't say nothing to the dog. I just feel it and I do it. I skip the saying, because they don't care about what I say. They care about what I feel and what I do. The human cares about what you say. So you can just brainwash the human all you want. Lie to the human and the human will vote. We're the only species that follows unstable leaders. There is no species that will vote for somebody that has unstable energy to begin with. They couldn't care less what they're saying.

Andrew Huberman: I watched that series on Netflix, Chimp Empire. It's fascinating — very hierarchical troops. And the alpha occasionally will feel like he's losing some control over his troop and he'll go on these displays where he starts breaking trees and beating his chest. They look a lot more like humans. Humans look a lot more like them.

But I saw an interview with Jane Goodall where they said, "What is your favorite thing about them?" And she said, "No, dogs are my favorite species. You can really trust them. The chimps — they're way too much like us. They lie. They cheat." And if you watch Chimp Empire, brace yourself — when they decide they're going to ostracize a member of their group, they make them suffer an extended punishment. It's brutal.

Cesar Millan: That's the primate brain. Sadly, humans were supposed to move beyond that. That's our role.

Preparing for every interaction: intention, ritual, and the door

Andrew Huberman: I'm making the assumption that some people either have a dog or they're thinking about getting one. Preparing oneself for every interaction sounds like the thing to do until it becomes reflexive. It's also a lot of work. You describe a brief prayer at the door, setting intention. I think that's awesome.

Waking up in the morning — I will say hello to Strummer. I take care of myself first, move about. If he has to use the bathroom, I let him out right away. But he waits, and then he gets up and we do our thing. But the temptation to walk over there and just — he's sleepy, he's a bulldog, he's calm, and to just go to him because I love him. My heart fills when I walk in the room with him.

I think this is the thing that a lot of people are challenged with. Temporarily breaking down my notion of cuteness was very important. He doesn't understand cute. He has no concept of cute. He only understands what he understands. I'm the one projecting, "Oh, but I want to cuddle him and I want to play with him."

I confess this is easier for me to do now that I've done it with one dog before. It's much harder for my girlfriend to do. She gets pulled in. We joke — "you caved to love." But it can damage the safety and the general pack order. And then people think, "Oh, pack order sounds like not love."

Could you elaborate a little on why it's so important to stay in this frame? We're really asking humans to think more like dogs, but to behave in a way that is somewhere in between.

Cesar Millan: Eighty percent of my clients are women. When I go to their home to assess and evaluate the dynamics inside the house, the dog is in the front, the wife is number two, the kids are number three, the husband is in the back of the pack. This is in the United States.

So why is the dog in the front? She puts him there. Why? Because she only practices affection. And why is the husband in the back? Because she practiced rules, boundaries, limitations with him. So look — she is capable of practicing leadership, but she practices it with the wrong member in the house. The dog needs the leadership. Why did they call me? Because now the dog — the kids can't walk him, friends' kids can't come to the house, the dog steals food, the dog barks at the neighbors. They don't have the ideal life they thought they were going to have by having this labradoodle.

Andrew Huberman: They should be the easiest one, right? Those two breeds are practically the epitome of the most docile breed.

Cesar Millan: But because they only practice affection first, or only affection, the dog ends up going in front of the pack. This is what happens when people prioritize affection to the dog but not to the rest of the pack. It's very clear for me that she practices rules and limitations with the husband — he has to do whatever she says — but the dog doesn't do whatever she says. So we have to help people understand: it's not that love is bad. It's just what are you giving love to?

Andrew Huberman: I'm so happy you're raising this. I think some people will say, "Well, she has to treat the husband basically like a child because he's playing video games." I'm making the assumption here that we don't know what the dynamics are between the husband and the wife. I have a lot of married couple friends where it seems very balanced. I don't know what happens when I'm not there, obviously. But I know some where yes, there's some infantilization of the male, but he does that to himself too.

Cesar Millan: He's behaving like a kid.

Andrew Huberman: Or I've also seen where it's a bit more of the structure I grew up in, at least for the early part of my life. Maybe it's because my father's from South America, but until my parents split, it was like my dad was the dad, and then it was my mom, and then there were the kids. Things are very different nowadays. And so I'm trying to remove any assumptions about the dynamic between the husband and wife. It's there's always an agreement there.

Cesar Millan: There's always an agreement. Did he surrender? Yeah. That's the agreement. At one point you don't want fight, flight, avoidance. So the guy ends up surrendering, but the dog didn't. The dog took over.

Andrew Huberman: And you also don't want so domineering that she's in fight, flight, surrendering.

Cesar Millan: Correct. We don't want that. That exists too and that's bad also.

My relationship now with a woman is — I have a good instinctual relationship because my masculine energy is the one who gives direction and protection. Before, I used to follow this concept of "happy wife, happy life." How can I make her happy? She has to make herself happy. So I ended up surrendering to everything she wanted. And this concept of "happy wife, happy life" didn't work for me. So I just went back to: I'm going to become confident and attract a woman that wants to be calm and surrendered to this area, which is the instinctual area. Spiritually, we're the same. Emotionally, we're the same. Financially, we're the same. But instinctually, that's the part that I couldn't just not be masculine, not be confident. I just couldn't. And it works beautifully now.

Andrew Huberman: It sounds like you've hit the bullseye there. Actually, I have a friend — he has a very happy, very successful marriage in the real sense. They have a couple of kids, one of them has some special needs, but they're managing that well. The home is very balanced. They seem very happy. And he was giving advice to some other guys, and he said, "Among the women that would be good partners for you, you have to make a decision about how much you want somebody who's going to give you instructions versus leave you alone versus wants some direction." It was a very edgy thing to say at the time. And it was very interesting. There were three other guys at the table, none of whom are married, including me. And we each had different answers to that question. One said, "Yeah, I want somebody that I can like, really — kind of wants to be led." Not subservient, obviously respect and kindness. But the other one said, "I want someone who's really going to keep me in line." I was very shocked. But he was being honest. He wanted someone who was basically going to keep him out of his childlike nature when the childlike nature wasn't going to help — keep the structure of the home.

I think it's a very important thing, this notion — we don't have good words for this — to keep us off the barbed wire. We hear dominance, hierarchy, and it sounds like control. It sounds like subservience. It gets into notions of all sorts of things. But this is a fundamental aspect of the human spirit. That's the instinctual part.

Cesar Millan: Like I said, we can both love God at the same level. We can love love at the same level. We can all develop our intelligence at the same level. But when it comes to instincts, that's the only area in my life where I know that my confidence is going to lead my pack. Because that's what I do with dogs. I walk a pack of dogs. So they all have to go into a calm surrender state. And so in my house, I wanted the same thing, because I want her to feel safe and peaceful. I want her to trust and respect. I want her to love that about me. But I have to be that man who has a high level of patience, a high level of calmness, a high level of confidence, a high level of love. I need to earn that position. I don't just want it. I earned it. But I need to have a woman who understands that's what I'm looking for. Instinctually, not in the mind, not in the heart. This is permanent.

You know your instincts, and I will provide safe peace. I will be a peaceful man, a safe man to be with, a trustworthy man, a respectful man, a loving man, a smart man. I will always work on having good energy and only following good philosophy and only doing good actions, because I want that position.

Andrew Huberman: Did you take some time before your current relationship, after your divorce, to sort of feel into this and think about how you were going to be that?

Cesar Millan: I realized that I was picking the wrong woman. I couldn't understand why I can pick a perfect dog for you — I can go pick the perfect dog — but I couldn't pick the perfect woman for me. I just wanted the one for me, what I think is perfect for me. And so I had trouble because I had the wrong philosophy inside my head. What a man should do, what a man and woman should do. It was the wrong philosophy, period. Once I changed the philosophy, I went, "Okay, I just need to find a woman with this spirit, with this instinct, with this heart, and with this mind." So I was more clear. Now I know what I'm looking for.

And she's a pack leader, but not in the house. She's a pack leader — she has three restaurants, she has a lot of money, she earned it, she did it on her own. And that was it. She came and said, "I just want to give you my calm surrender." I said, "That's all I want from a woman, to have a beautiful relationship." So she knew that she wanted to be in the role that she currently is. There was a knowledge of self going into it.

Because when she's doing her business, she has to be a pack leader. They get tired of being pack leaders. They just get tired of giving direction and protection 24/7, even at home. So at home she just wanted somebody to give her safe peace, trust, respect, calm surrender. She needed to connect to her instincts. She connects to God, so she's calm and surrendered to God. She's calm and surrendered to the business. But she needed to become surrendered to a man. But it has to be the right man. I was the right man at that time, because I earned the position.

Machismo is not earning the position. You're just a man and that's that. No, no. When you're a good pack leader, you earn the position. You know who you are. You value who you are. And that's what you love. Self-knowledge, self-value, self-love. So I did my rehabilitation for me, because even though my grandparents and my father taught me well about animals, they didn't teach me well about women. They said, "You make money and you get whatever you want." That was it.

Andrew Huberman: That's an incomplete education.

Cesar Millan: How do I assess and evaluate whether that's the right woman? How do I make sure I do good connection, communication, relationship? Everything I teach with a dog — how can I achieve it with my own species? But I didn't receive that information. I was just given a project, and I accomplished it. I became famous and I just went and grabbed whatever was available.

Andrew Huberman: I'll just be direct. I think my parents split because of a power struggle about roles and power. My father's from a Latin country, my mother's not, but irrespective of that, it didn't matter. Fortunately, they both remarried. They've been remarried for a very long time, very happily to their new partners. And my sister and I always say they're like with their perfect fit. It just works. Because of exactly what you're describing, these dynamics.

I think I saw online at some point someone said, "The way you destroy a country is to get the men and women to hate each other." And we see that a lot now. I like to think maybe things are improving a little bit. But so much of what we see — because of anger at leaders, frustration with social dynamics and beliefs about what people can and can't become — all of this has led to a ton of distrust. The power structure is all messed up.

Cesar Millan: They fight, flight, avoid each other, but they say they love each other. And they still desire each other, right? I mean, men and women are still seeking to be together. But you hear all the guys are like kids, and you hear all the women want something that can't be achieved. A lot of confusion.

Andrew Huberman: And of course, I know some very happy couples where they've worked it out. But the roles in those couples seem very — it's like they're being themselves and it just works.

Cesar Millan: I just don't want to think about it. I just want to feel it. I just want my spirit, my instinct, and my heart. And I know what I've got to do anyway. I'm 56. I know what I've got to do. I just don't want to have fight or flight avoidance at home. Ever, ever, ever. So it's very clear to me that what I'm looking for is exactly what everybody looks for in a relationship. Human, dog — safe, peace, love, trust, respect, love, body, mind, heart, exercise, discipline, affection, follow, play, explore. Everybody wants the same thing. They just do it with a different species. I wanted to be able to do it with a different species and my own species. And I'm the happiest I've ever been.

Andrew Huberman: You breathe and exude happiness. I have to say it — it's real. It's tangible.

Cesar Millan: It's amazing, because I was already happy with my goal in life. My dream was to become the best dog trainer in the world. And I became the Dog Whisperer. So I train humans. I don't train dogs. This dream was bigger than what I thought. But then I couldn't have a good relationship with a woman, which was fascinating to me at that time. Why do I have fight, flight, avoidance? Why don't I have calm surrender, happy-go-lucky, calm confident? Why isn't my woman calm and confident towards me?

If I'm wrong, then yeah, she can give direction and protection. But if I'm not, there's no need. That makes me a very consistent man with my role. I keep my peace, my patience, my calmness, my confidence, my love, every single day of my life. I don't miss one day, even if I don't feel good. Internally I'm at 100%, because with people it only takes once to be on the receiving end of an outburst to just have that little asterisk going forward.

Andrew Huberman: I share with you the deep desire — and fortunately I have it now — to not have fight or flight at home. Or from a dog either.

Cesar Millan: Or from a dog either. Always scary. Exactly.

Andrew Huberman: So I'm guessing that the home you grew up in had a fair amount of fight or flight, otherwise maybe that wouldn't be such a priority.

Cesar Millan: It was very, very machismo. My parents are still married. But it was this way or that's it. It was definitely more like sadness, because my mom was not allowed to do her own self. And so that's obviously not healthy for the dream of a woman. She had to just be a mom and stay at home, and it was hard for her. That's all I saw. When my dad would discipline, he would discipline with anger. When my mom would discipline, she would discipline with guilt. And that was it. But it worked a little bit.

Then I came to America and it's a completely different way of looking at things. You can work on your energy. You can work on your philosophy. You can work on your actions. And then you can become just as good as you are with a dog, because I have an incredible relationship with dogs and an incredible relationship with God, because he definitely allowed me to become what I dreamed about. I came and did it in a different country. I had to learn a different language. And then I went all over the world. That was God — me following the spirit and the instinct. Now I can tell you how I did it.

But in the beginning, when I jumped the border, it was all spiritual and all instinctual. It was all passion. It was not the mind doing it. It was just my spirit and my instinct and my heart following this dream and adapting. I have to learn this. I have to do this. But at the same time, I saw a lot of great things in America. Like, you can be you. You can be you. It's great. This is a good philosophy — the stoic. That's a great philosophy. And then your actions: just walk, shoulders up, head high, breathe, walk. Your body language also exudes what you're thinking and what you're feeling. And because I'm with dogs all day, I just keep that energy 24/7. It's beautiful.

Andrew Huberman: The thing about just shoulders back and walk — I think it's funny to see when people try this. They're like, "I'm going to be the pack leader." That doesn't work. And it really doesn't work with a bulldog mastiff.

Cesar Millan: No, you can't fake it. If you get frustrated with them, they feel it and they pull back. It's wild. They can feel it.

Andrew Huberman: If I'm frustrated, I'll sometimes give a little stern signal. I have one little command that I occasionally use. I keep its potency. But if Strummer is really being stubborn just for stubborn's sake, I'll do it. That's all. But if I do that more than three times on a walk, it loses its potency. It's just my way of saying no. And I'm realizing as I say this that it's probably more of a reminder to myself as much as it is a reminder to him.

Cesar Millan: It happened to both.

Andrew Huberman: Yeah. I'm just kind of trying to create this thing like, "No, we're going. I lead this walk. We're doing this walk." And he just goes.

Now, it's a little bit tougher when my girlfriend walks him. He tests her more. So can we talk about that? When a dog is very respectful of one person, obeys the boundaries, but then to other people they're acting out — how should that be remedied? If the three of us walk together, he'll do whatever she wants. With me, he does whatever I decide. But sometimes with her, she'll say, "He was great," or, "No, he was really difficult." How does one facilitate that?

Cesar Millan: I think the first thing women have to realize is how much they are in their emotions and how much they think about things. The fact that we go into the silence and the calmness and just follow through — that's the spirit, the instinct, and the mind. And that's what's walking the dog. But in my experience, women go into the emotional vibration and then they begin to have an intellectual conversation. So the dog knows that that human is only using half of who they are, which is the heart and the mind. And so it's very important for women to remember that spirit is a powerful thing. How am I going to practice silence? And instinct is a powerful thing. How am I going to practice calm? Just breathe. You're calm inside. You just want to go from point A to point B. Very simple, very practical. You're not negotiating. You're not looking at anything else. You're not distracted. You're just going for the task. And then the dog just follows that silence, the calmness, and the confidence.

When the human doesn't use that vibration, the dog has an option to get distracted, to do other things, to go away from the routine, from the structure. But at the same time, that same woman can ride a horse, and in order to ride a horse, she has to be quiet and confident.

Andrew Huberman: Oh yeah. My first girlfriend had horses at home. They had a stable below their home. Her dad came over from Greece, became a taxi driver, and he was going to give his daughters this life. And they had this horse. It was incredible to see her, because she's a very quiet person, very artistic. But with her horse — and he was a wild one, he was gelded late, so it was a whole thing — a completely different side of her came out. And it was the first time I realized, I was a teenager, but I was like, "Oh, she has this immense power." It was a completely different landscape. The level of calm and confidence to clean a horse — you know a horse can kill you. But if you walk around going, "Oh my gosh, this horse can kill me," it does not go well.

Cesar Millan: Exactly. What we have to remember is the human part before the gender. Just go back to your human. Can a man and a woman ride a horse? Yeah. Why? Because they're using the same energy and the same philosophy and the same actions. So is it because it's a man or a woman? No. It's because they're using the same energy. So it's a human thing, not a gender thing.

So I invite my female clients: don't forget you also have this calm confidence inside of you that your dog needs and craves. Especially because most of the time people call me because the dog is in a fight state. Most of my cases are aggression. So in your case, you have no choice. You have to lead the pack. And the only way you can lead the pack is with calm confidence. You love the pack with love and joy. So you already know how to do that. You have to tap into what people call masculine energy. Can a woman ride a horse? Yes. She has to be in this energy to do it. She has to. So she just has to learn to recognize, "Okay, I'm not changing me. I'm just using everything about me."

It's like a man. Can a man use the feminine side? Yes, you can. Of course you have it. Your love and joy — that's your feminine side. And your masculine is your calm confidence. Silence is for everybody. It's your patience. So silence is before calm confidence or love and joy. However you want to call it, just be the whole human. Use your spirit, use your instinct, use your heart, use your mind, trust, respect, love, and then do whatever your mind wants to do. It has nothing to do with women or men.

But if we divide and see each other as different and say, "No, it's because I'm a woman, I have to be emotional" — yes, you can be emotional at the right time. Just like a man can be emotional at the right time. Nobody's saying not to be loving. What we're saying is how to use this energy for good, where you reward good behavior on humans and good behavior on dogs with the energy of love. If the energy of love could change bad, there would be no bad men in the world, because moms normally give you love. But love doesn't change the bad energy. It's the confidence that changes the bad energy.

Information, division, and the pack that unites

Andrew Huberman: The idea that society is broken, humans are broken — there are a lot of problems in the world right now.

Cesar Millan: Purposely, by the way.

Andrew Huberman: Tell me more.

Cesar Millan: If we get the wrong information, we're going to have no connection, communication, relationship. So how can we become powerful? When we unite, we become powerful. The pack unites. But if the pack is separated, the pack fights, takes flight, and avoids each other. So purposely we get the wrong information. That's why my goal is to give people the right information. If you have low money, middle class, rich — it really doesn't matter. We should all know the same thing about dogs. We should all know the same thing about God. We should all know the same thing about earth. All of us. It has nothing to do with what position you are in economically speaking.

So what does that world look like? Well, that world looks like all humans around the world, regardless of their economic position, all having an amazing relationship with dogs. How? Because they all have the same information. That's it.

Andrew Huberman: I love that. I feel like we're drifting further and further away from ourselves as a species. And what I'm hearing is that looking at our interactions with this other species — dogs — and practicing our ability to get outside ourselves, to tap into other aspects of ourselves like the need for calm confidence when we just want to be loving — that's really about wanting to be loved. The person coming home is not — it's not that the dog needs their love. Actually, this person just feels so tired at the end of the day. What they need is something that just adores them.

And the whole process of raising Costello was one of reading your book and then realizing that if I really want to get what I want, it means building the relationship, not doing this thing in the moment. I'm thinking about the whole relationship. Safety first. And so it's this counterintuitive thing of needing to go against self in the moment to create the sort of picture where you get so much more and everybody wins. There is a version where everybody, including the dogs, wins.

Cesar Millan: Everybody wins. But it requires a level of self-discipline, awareness, calmness, and breathing that I think many people — certainly at that time I felt like there was just so much constant pressure to do, do, do. So there's a certain amount of slowing down and self-awareness that's required for everything you're describing.

Andrew Huberman: What is your practice for that on a daily basis? You're a master now, a virtuoso at this. But for somebody that's trying to move from unskilled to skilled in the domain of slowing down, thinking about what the priority in this interaction is, getting all that working while life is happening in real time — how do you recommend that people start to cultivate this awareness?

Cesar Millan: I think the quicker we become aware of what life is about — we're all going to die, so what is life about? Life is about being happy, healthy, loving, and smart. That's life. And then it's time — how you structure and manage time. And then it's memories. That's all you take. Once you realize those three things, I think you're going to be able to focus and experience life the way animals do. Because they're very grateful for life. They structure time very wisely. And by the time they die, they only take good memories. Because that's all you take — good memories.

So the quicker we surrender to that concept, the quicker we are going to focus on what's valuable. And things that we can definitely practice — this concept of love. So to me, it's be grateful for life every day. Be thankful for life every day. Learn with your mind to learn, to achieve, to give it away. It's very important to be of service and to help other humans or animals achieve what you just achieved. And of course, the energy of love — love those three things about yourself. Your spirit, your instinct, and your mind. Learn to love that about you, because that's who you are.

So who is Cesar Millan? Cesar Millan is a spirit. He's an instinct. He's a heart and he's a mind. So I value that so much. And once you value that, it's easy to love what you value. Once you realize this natural, simple, profound self, you want to give it away. I give it away to dogs. And because I do that, I get to rehabilitate dogs that people have unconsciously confused.

Dogs in America should be the happiest, healthiest, loving, smartest dogs on earth, because dogs in America have rights. You understand that concept? But why would a guy from Mexico come to America and National Geographic give him a TV show? Because America was created with fight, flight, avoidance, unconsciously. Even though America loves dogs more than any other country I've ever seen in my life — dogs have birthday parties in America, dogs have Christmas presents in America, dogs get married in America. That just shows you the creativity of the human. But not because the dog has all this money, fame, and power is the dog happy.

My goal is for people to understand that happiness and health and having a good heart and having a good creative mind — you shouldn't think too much. It's just about being grateful. It's just about being thankful. It's about loving those two things. And then make sure that your mind learns, achieves, gives it away, or learns to turn it off. Don't use your mind to think bad things.

Cold exposure, turning off the mind, and the calm surrender state

Andrew Huberman: What's your process for turning off your mind? This is a very common challenge for people.

Cesar Millan: I think the easiest way for people to experience it is because they have to see it. You can tell people, but if they don't see it inside, they're never going to understand what you mean. So what I help people with is I put them in the cold plunge. Once they go through the fight, flight, avoidance, they want to see, and they get to the calm surrender. What are you thinking? I'm thinking nothing. That's exactly what a clear mind looks like. So through that cold plunge experience, the human gets to understand breath, patience, confidence, and not to think anything, because you're doing this with your spirit and your instinct and your heart. Your mind just has to wait for the three minutes — without anticipation. There's just nothing there. And of course the cold doesn't let you think. The only thing you can do is breathe and wait. And once they see it, okay, that is the meaning of not having anything in your mind. I make them experience it versus just telling them.

Andrew Huberman: As somebody who's a real believer in deliberate cold exposure — I think it's zero cost. You can use a cold shower. What it tells me is that the cold plunge immediately and reliably releases adrenaline, which then wakes up the brain as well.

Cesar Millan: That's your instinct.

Andrew Huberman: It shuts down the forebrain. The forebrain is strategy, etc. But in the first 20 or 30 seconds of deliberate cold exposure, the prefrontal cortex — which controls all the top-down inhibition of impulse — is not shut off, but it is greatly diminished. You can't strategize well. You're just thinking about getting out.

Cesar Millan: So they get to peace. Yeah. And that's the energy to bring to your interaction with your dog.

Andrew Huberman: And ideally to your spouse and your kids too.

Cesar Millan: Everywhere. A human after a cold plunge brings that energy everywhere. You don't have to talk. Everybody knows your energy feels really good. All because you went to mother nature. Cold, water, cold — that's mother nature. So imagine you bring that energy to meeting a dog, to walking with a dog, to feeding a dog. That's it. That's all I want people to experience. Because everybody wants to just give affection. They're not aware of how they feel. They just want to give affection. That's good for the human, not necessarily good for everybody else, because that human is spreading that energy.

So my goal is for people to spread silence, calmness, confidence, love, joy, because that's exactly how you feel after a cold plunge. In three minutes, you get into that state. You have to learn to love the process — I'm going to fight, flight, avoidance. But I'm not going to listen to that part of me. I'm going to listen to my calm surrender. I'm going to listen to my calm confidence. And then once I finish, I'm going to listen to my happy-go-lucky. And that's all you want. Those three states of mind are super powerful.

Andrew Huberman: I've thought a lot about deliberate cold exposure, adrenaline, norepinephrine. You get this long arc of dopamine that lasts hours and hours afterwards. Very few things produce this long-lasting dopamine.

Cesar Millan: A good relationship with a dog is long-lasting dopamine. A well-balanced dog is long-lasting whatever you want. I hope you want the four worlds — your spirit, your instinct, your heart, and your mind. All of them, by walking. Just walk with the dog for a long period of time. Then do your play and explore. That's the best medicine any human can get.

The amount of peace that I still get from my relationship with Costello — I mean, he's passed now, but I believe in his spirit. It makes me well up, not out of sadness. I can feel the love of the relationship.

Honoring a dog's death — and the final act of pack leadership

Andrew Huberman: I believe so too. I wanted to ask — as Costello got to 11 years old, it's pretty old for a bulldog.

Cesar Millan: That's right.

Andrew Huberman: He had some sort of spinal stroke. He couldn't walk. He was falling over. I was distraught. How can I get this fixed? And at some point I realized — when people say, "They'll let you know" — I had a feeling and then a thought, and it went something like this. I made a contract with him to take care of him. And in the contract of being a really good dog owner, but mostly in the contract of the relationship, I owed him a peaceful exit. He hated going to the vet. So I got someone to come to the house and do this thing.

I think it would have been useful to me to understand the day I got him that someday this is going to end. And this thing about honoring death as a real thing is so important, because that last two weeks was a real struggle between me and myself. My desire to just keep it going. And I realized I was being selfish. It was about me. And I gave him the best passage I could. And people in my life who knew me and knew my relationship to him said, "I actually can't believe you did it. I'm surprised you were able to." But the moment I realized this is the final line in the contract of being a really good dog owner, I was like, "Of course I have to do this."

So no one likes this topic, but given where you're from, what is your relationship to the concept of death as it relates to dogs? And the question is very specific: do people say they'll let you know? Is it okay to show your dog sadness, or does it make the dog that's dying more anxious?

Cesar Millan: With my kids — because I have two kids and we have a pack of dogs — they have experienced dogs passing. We always make a celebration. I always bring them to their favorite place. I definitely bring more the energy of happiness. And I ask my kids: if you're going to cry or whatever, just do it away from them. Otherwise, hold them.

I don't want them to go back. That's why it's so good to believe in God, because they're going back to the source. They're way better with him than here on earth. I did my homework too. So I feel really good that I gave the best life for that particular dog. And so when it's time to go, they tell you. Many, many signs. But at the same time, when it's the day, is everybody happy? Everybody's happy. We're going to dance. We're going to celebrate. It's a ritual. You can make a sad ritual or you can make a happy ritual. It's time for him to depart. Time to go.

So when I die, I want everybody to be happy. My life is beyond what I thought. I give that same life to a dog. I'm very dedicated — seven days a week, even if I don't feel good, it doesn't matter. I go and walk that pack. I'm very committed. It's all about honor. It's all about respect. That's my way of showing my heart. And in my mind, I don't have one day that I did wrong by them. So when it's time for them to go, it's time for them to go. But we're going to make it happy, because they're going back to God. That's how I see it.

And as you're talking about that — spirit never dies. It's an opening for me to help another soul, and another soul. Because that's why I'm here. I'm here on earth to use my time wisely to keep helping. And that's what I find my inspiration and motivation. That's it.

Andrew Huberman: Beautiful. Not what I expected, and I'm so pleasantly surprised. It challenges me to even say it because he's still so new. But when Strummer dies, the last 24 hours of his life will be a celebration with him.

Cesar Millan: Celebration. All right. Yeah. Happy spirit. Sing, laugh, dance, just happiness. Because once you start going like this, they get worried. And then the spirit lingers and you don't want that. You just want them to go. And for them to give you direction and protection. I have a big pack in heaven.

Andrew Huberman: You definitely have a big pack waiting for you.

Cesar Millan: When I go home, how many dogs have I saved in my life? So yeah, I'm going home.

Andrew Huberman: I love it. Earth is a beautiful home, but it's temporary.

Cesar Millan: Yeah. Well, I believe this too.

Andrew Huberman: If people are feeling sad — the number of people I know who turn to their dog for emotional support around a loss of a loved one or a breakup or loss of a job or whatever the world throws at them — what is your stance on that?

Cesar Millan: It's bad because they're passing that energy. The dog doesn't know what happened. But I mean, obviously they're going to help you absorb the energy. But after you did that, just take him to the beach so he can let go of the energy. Same thing when you bring a dog to a hospital — the therapy dogs go to hospitals, kids with cancer, depressed people. That dog absorbs that energy. Just like you will absorb people's energy. Your job is to go and let it go. So every time you give bad energy, your job is to help people or help dogs get rid of that energy that is not healthy for them.

You can also go and take a cold plunge before you hug the dog, and that way you kill that bad energy. Only give good energy to your family, give good energy to your home. It's discipline. It's easier to just go and throw that negative energy that you just grabbed. It's easier. But then you spread that whole thing everywhere.

I saw in so many laboratories where the boss — brilliant scientists — would do what I would call trickle-down anxiety. They'd be stressed and they'd walk through the lab stressing out. Graduate school is already hard, especially in the sciences — very competitive. Post-doc is even more uncertain. You don't get a degree at the end. You're investing five years of your life. And to walk around with the boss making people anxious — terrible. The other thing that was terrible was walking around making people feel overly confident. People would do that too.

Andrew Huberman: I feel like we are so selfish as a species. Like these animals are here for us and just for us — to give me love when I get home, to console me when I'm sad, to give me all the things I want. That I would be blind to the basic needs of that animal. It's as selfish, in my opinion, as saying, "These are animals that we work on that just serve our purposes to advance our careers or scientific understanding." And again, there's a place for that, but we have to be incredibly nuanced about where that's appropriate and where it's inappropriate.

Cesar Millan: It's just the selfish part and the unselfish part. What I'm saying is don't forget to be of service before somebody's at service to you. The spirit and instinct love to be of service. And then the love and the mind love to be served. So this is your selfish part and this is your unselfish part. You're here to serve God and you're here to serve earth. Don't forget that. To be of service. Because they skip it. Once you go directly to the heart and the mind — "This is what I want. I want my dog to love me" — you just skipped spirit and instinct. Because a spirit will never bring bad energy to the heart, and an instinct will never bring bad energy to the mind.

So if you remember that you are four things, and this is what you want to give to your dog, to yourself, to your house, to your family, then you're going to be focusing on making sure that you snap out of it — whatever it is — and then you go bring patience, calmness, confidence, love, and then you go hug the dog.

So you also have to learn to snap yourself out of whatever energy you went and attracted. It's like stepping on poop. You've got to remove your shoe before you walk into the house. Otherwise you bring that in. Energy is the same way. It's like poop on your feet. Bad energy is the same. You're going to spread it all over the house. Your plants are going to die. Your dogs are going to be like, "Okay, this energy is not good." And then your family will get it. You're going to enter into this dark energy.

Social media noise, petting, barking, and the treadmill

Andrew Huberman: These days on social media, there's so much — I'm realizing about the low-level stuff. Like, "You should never hug a dog." "You should hug a dog." "You should never pick up your dog off the ground." "It's okay to pick up your dog." "Your dog should never be in your bed." "Your dog should be in your bed." You see all these contradictions. You see the same thing in the health space. And it comes down to a basic fact, which is that it's not about the practice. It's the principle behind it, the spirit behind it, the energy behind it.

So I was tempted to ask you, "Is it bad to pick up the dog?" Actually, Strummer loves being held. He's basically happiest just being carried around. But I know I don't carry him around too much. He just drapes. He's so happy that way. He wishes he could go through the world that way.

Cesar Millan: It's not about carry or no carry. It's about what is your energy. Why are you doing this? Is it for you? Is it for them? And if the dog feels — because you can ask a groomer or a vet, they have to carry that dog. But they can't carry a fight-avoidance dog. They can only carry a happy-go-lucky one or a calm-surrender one. So there's nothing wrong with hugging a dog. There's nothing wrong with putting a dog on the bed. It's just what state of mind the dog was in when you did this that is more important.

Because what if a dog is in a flight state and you want to carry him? He's going to feel trapped and then the dog is going to bite, or he's going to pee, or he's going to scream. You could have prevented that just by not focusing on what you wanted to do. Is the dog that you want to do that with in a calm surrender state?

Can a dog stay on the bed? There's nothing wrong with sharing your house with the dog. Think about invading versus inviting. When the dog goes on his own, he's invading. When the dog is waiting and then you tell him to come over and you tell him where to go, that's being invited. So that mind is going to become surrendered. The other one is going to get territorial.

You know how many times I have rehabilitated dogs who claimed people's bed, where the husband can't come near the bed because the wife and the dog were already there? I've done a rehabilitation where the husband slept in the living room for three years because she wanted the dogs to stay on the bed, and every time the guy came into the bedroom, the dogs were after him.

Andrew Huberman: I'm sure everyone is thinking, "What did he do wrong?" But I can also imagine the situation you just described where no one did anything wrong except give the dog too much power. Let's assume there's no problem between the couple. She would like the husband in the bed perhaps. But the dog is somehow picking up on something.

Cesar Millan: No, no. She said it clearly to me. "I just don't want him on the bed." The husband.

Andrew Huberman: Okay. So the dog is basically taking advantage of the opening.

Cesar Millan: Well, listen. Let's say you guys want to spend 20 minutes on the bed. Let me show you how to do it. And so I taught the dogs just to wait. But she needed to make sure that she agrees — agreement, commitment, follow-through. Nothing can happen without agreement. So she needs to be in 100% agreement. Otherwise, the dog will not do it.

Andrew Huberman: They really can sense any kind of small fraction of your energy going down.

Cesar Millan: They're going to take over. Your energy goes up, they're going to move away. Your energy has to be bigger for you to create the follow. If your energy goes down, you follow them. Simple as that. You just have to remember energy. And if you want to lead — this is the animals. You can lead humans by lying to them all day long. But with animals, you can't. You have to bring the perfect energy, the right energy, an energy that belongs to all of us. Your patient energy, your calm energy, your confident energy, your love energy. We all have that inside of us. God gave us all the same thing. That's up to you. Do you go from the back of the pack to the front of the pack? That's up to you. But you have patience, calmness, confidence, love, joy, because that's how you're going to deal with life. With animals, it's a perfect way to maintain this within yourself. It's like going to the gym every day. But the gym is mother nature — the beach, the streets, whatever. You're just walking around with dogs in a natural, simple, profound way. And that's it. Then you go to work.

So imagine if people develop this beautiful habit: okay, I'm going to do what Cesar says — silence, calmness, confidence, love, joy for 30, 40 minutes. Then I'm going to feel the silence. I come. Then I go to work. And when I come back, no touching, no talk, no contact, sending my dog back into her calm state. And then I can do the greeting. Then I go for another walk. And then you can do the play and explore. No bad behavior would happen in your house with that simple formula.

Andrew Huberman: I love it. I hope that people start to think about their dog and getting a dog as more of a gym, as opposed to, "We're going to get a fur baby."

I have a friend — this is truly not about my household — she's married, they're going through some struggles, they have two kids, and she told me the other day they're going to get two husky puppies. And I said, "Do me a favor. Just get one."

Cesar Millan: Yeah.

Andrew Huberman: In six months, if you want a second. But they want each other, this and that, and the kids are young. There's no way. I know the struggles they're having. They're both overworked, underresourced. And they love each other very much, but this is a really hard situation. And I'm thinking to myself, I want to be supportive. And I said, "Do not get a puppy now. And if you do, do not get two puppies." She said, "But I promised the kids." And it was a very interesting story. She said, "When I was growing up, my parents would make these promises and they wouldn't do it. And it broke my heart. And I told my kids they could each get one."

And I said, "Well, you have no idea the kind of heartbreak they're going to experience when you have to give them both back because one is biting the kid." And she was like, "Oh, I wouldn't want that." And I was thinking to myself, you're already underresourced.

I share this because I'm realizing throughout today's conversation, our concept of dogs and what they owe us is completely backwards. She's a very good person, in a profession of intense service all day long. But the concept is these puppies are going to come here and rescue us. They're going to fulfill the dream that I had prior to, you know, with my parents. More love can't be bad.

Cesar Millan: Yeah. And they're huskies, right? So this is a breed that loves to migrate longer than any other breed in the world. Walking is one thing, migration is another.

Andrew Huberman: This is why I got a bulldog breed. I didn't get a purebred bulldog because they have issues. But yeah, a dog that needs to migrate — how much walking do they need per day, ideally?

Cesar Millan: Hours. And especially a pack. The bigger the pack, the longer the walk.

Andrew Huberman: They both work such long hours.

Cesar Millan: You can also let her know: begin with fostering, so that way they get to know themselves as a family. Is everybody in agreement? Does everybody understand what the rules, boundaries, and limitations are? Does everybody understand what the responsibilities are? Can we all see our good habits and our bad habits? Do we all follow through?

With a foster dog, you're not adopting them. You're just temporarily keeping him in that house. So the dog gets a home and a family. It doesn't necessarily have to stay in the house, but the human gets to learn about themselves before they enter into the purchase or the adoption. To have two husky puppies, you've got to purchase them. And then eventually you realize, "We were not ready as a family. In my mind, I was ready. But in the whole pack, we're not ready."

And in puppyhood — that's from birth to eight months — in a matter of six months, you have a dog that is this big who is an adolescent now. Now you've got to think about spay and neuter, because if you don't, then you deal with the hormones and they can start fighting with each other.

Andrew Huberman: What's your take on spay and neuter?

Cesar Millan: Well, in America it's necessary, because dogs are not going to mate and they spend a lot of time indoors. So I neutered Costello.

Andrew Huberman: Yeah. I put him on testosterone therapy his final two years. Vets that I knew said, "We would love to be able to do that more, but there are reasons we don't." With Strummer, I thought, keep him intact. Then people say, "Oh, but then they're going to mate with all the dogs in the neighborhood." You can also give a dog a vasectomy. It's a very easy procedure. It's funny we don't do that. I learned that in Australia — it's illegal to not neuter your dog. In Scandinavia, it's illegal to neuter. What in the world is best?

Cesar Millan: Well, it depends on the place. Because in America, without a doubt, since the dogs don't go out as often, they're reliant on the human. Dogs in a third world country, they're not neutered, but they're not looking for trouble. They mate when the female gets in heat. Otherwise, they're busy looking for food and water. As long as you use your energy for survival purposes, you're not going to develop frustration.

So what happens when a dog is intact and they don't get to walk enough and they don't get to be challenged enough? Then it all goes into arousal and the whole day they're excited. And then the dog gets excited. How many times have I seen dogs humping their owners or humping furniture in the house?

Andrew Huberman: I mean, Costello tried to hump me once. It never happened again. I just made it very clear that was not okay. I used isolation. I just put him back in the crate, left, came back. I sent him the message mentally, energetically. That's never happening again. It was very stern.

Cesar Millan: It has to be clear day one. But a lot of times people celebrate that, and so they end up in a celebration, and the dog ends up becoming more and more aroused about the humans. So now he's mounting, which as you know is sexual and dominance behavior towards the human. In America, definitely a dog needs to be neutered more often. Plus, we have an overpopulation problem. Millions of dogs die every year because of overpopulation, and that's taxpayer money that pays for the killing of dogs. So it's important that we regulate that. That's the only way you can regulate it.

Andrew Huberman: I see these crazy things on Instagram. Someone says, "When you pet your dog, it should be slow." No, when you pet your dog, you should rub. I'm guessing it doesn't matter. It's the energy behind it.

Cesar Millan: Look, if a dog is doing agility and the dog is excited because he's doing agility, pet him hard, pet him fast, because you want him like that. But if you want the dog to be calm in a restaurant, pet him slow. So it's dependent on what you want the mind to feel. You don't want to pet fast in a restaurant and slow in agility. It's not the action — it's what are you petting for?

Andrew Huberman: Makes total sense. A calm restaurant means calm. Agility means go for it.

Andrew Huberman: With barking — I learned from your book that if Costello, when he was a puppy, could let it out. The temptation is to say no. But why would you shout back to a dog that's vocalizing? So I would just walk away, and then when he was quiet I'd come back. And pretty soon he realized nobody wants to be around a barking dog. And somehow he knew instinctually that if there was a threat or someone he sensed, a bark — he only would bark once. He had this bass drum of a bark, but it was one. And then we'd just move on. But he would never just sit there and bark.

I think a lot of people — their dog barks and they talk to their dog, so presumably the dog is barking because that's what gets them some sort of feedback or attention.

Cesar Millan: That's right. Or the dog's barking is also his only way to drain energy. When a dog obsessively barks — how often do you walk? Once a week, twice a week? So the barking becomes a way of draining energy. Or like destroying your house — destructive behavior. Why would a dog destroy where he sleeps? Well, because he doesn't do much with his body and his mind. So he has to drain that energy, and that's what we call destructive behavior. But people don't understand that we are in a way practicing destructive behavior by not doing what we're supposed to be doing, which is walking the dog every single day.

Andrew Huberman: At the moment they wake up in the morning, they stretch, and the second thing they want to do is walk. Should you wait for your dog to get up? What if you have to go to work? Should you force your dog to wake up and walk?

Cesar Millan: I certainly would. They're daytime animals. As soon as the sun comes up, they should go. This is what we do with Strummer — even a bulldog. I mean, they'll sleep till 10:00 a.m., but we have to work, so we take them.

Andrew Huberman: No, take care of it. It's actually better, because you want them to stay waiting for you in a resting state.

Cesar Millan: So it's five body motions the animals do. They stretch as soon as they wake up. Walk, run, rest, sleep. A lot of times when you don't walk the dog or run the dog and you want the dog to wait for you, he can't go into a resting state. So it's very important that we follow the five body motions, because every single animal, as soon as they wake up, they stretch. The bird flies. The dog walks. The water animals swim. There is a formula that they have. So if we want them to wait for us, we have to leave them in a resting state. That's the meaning of a waiting state. But they can't wait or rest if the body and the mind have not been drained. And that's another reason why the walk is so important, because the walk is the only activity from play and explore that gives them calm surrender. Play and explore gives them an excited energy.

Andrew Huberman: Do you recommend walking them on the same path or a novel path?

Cesar Millan: In the beginning, yes, the same path is important — that creates trust in the environment. But once they know it very well, you have to change it. And you don't have to change it dramatically. Even going in a different direction. You can just come outside and put food on the floor and tempt the dog to want to smell and then correct them. So that creates a challenge. You start creating your own universal studios. Your whole house or your whole environment becomes your own dog psychology center where you're challenging your dog not to get bored, because they learn a pattern really fast, and once they learn it, there is no growth. Then the mind gets frustrated, bored, or confused because there's no growth.

Andrew Huberman: I train Strummer to run on the treadmill. For little rewards here and there, intermittent reinforcement. And he loves it. He runs now. He jumps on. He gets on that thing. It never occurred to me to do this, but I realized that we're in California. It doesn't rain too often, but even when it rains, I want to have something where I can get his energy out. So glad to hear that the treadmill is okay.

Cesar Millan: You know, the first treadmill I ever saw, remember the show The Jetsons? Astro, the dog on the treadmill. That was the first dog I ever saw on a treadmill, and I was a kid. Then I came to America and I saw a whole bunch of treadmills in people's garages. I said, "Do you ever put your dog on a treadmill?" They said, "No. Can you put a dog on the treadmill?" I learned that by watching the Jetsons. Then I came and practiced it in America because people just had the treadmill but they were not using it. And people were just fascinated. But I said, "Listen, this is not for you to stay lazy. This is just for emergencies and for you to challenge the mind. But it's not so you don't walk."

Andrew Huberman: I do a walk with him, then bring him back, and then if he still has a lot of energy and I have to go, I get him going fast on an incline, get him right to his threshold, and play with it a little bit. And now he loves the treadmill. He's dying to get on the treadmill.

Cesar Millan: People become more like personal trainers. They will challenge the dogs a lot more — challenge the mind and challenge the body, as a personal trainer. But people don't do it. They don't want those other titles. They just want to be a dog lover, or the mom of this dog, or the father of this dog. You can also be a coach. You can also be a spiritual coach, an intellectual coach. Don't forget that there are four worlds. It's not just the emotional world, and that's the only one you want to practice because that's the easiest one. To love a dog is so easy. To challenge him spiritually and instinctually and intellectually — that requires creativity.

Andrew Huberman: That's a great relationship.

Cesar Millan: It's awesome. It's good for you. Because if the dog is doing great, that means you did great. So it's a reflection of you — your energy, your philosophy, your actions. Every time you work out with a dog, you're working out with yourself. It's just in a natural, simple, profound way. That's it. Which is about trust, respect, love, safe, peace, love, body, mind, heart. Just simple stuff. And that creates the off-leash. That is the ultimate we should all accomplish. And you shouldn't pay for it. It's kind of silly that you hire somebody to teach your dog off leash. You earn that. That's something we have to earn. It's good for us to earn that trust, that respect, that love. It's a good exercise. It's a good workout. That means you use your spirit, your instinct, your heart, and your mind every single day of life. That's why that dog behaves that way. They keep you on track just to live a natural, simple, profound life. And when you're having a hard time in life, that's where you want to go — to your natural, simple, profound. Never let this one go.

To have a good relationship with a dog automatically lets you have a good relationship with God. They're together. We're the only ones that separate them. We're the only ones that separate everything to create chaos. We make a lot of things up.

Closing reflections — spirit first, everything else follows

Andrew Huberman: What I'm hearing today, over and over, is that if you obey the spirit, you obey the instincts — ours and these animals', dogs in this case — and you put that first, then all the other stuff about bed or not bed, pet or not pet, like all the other stuff falls into place. But it's a moment-to-moment thing. It's a daily thing. There isn't a "well, I love my dog, it loves me." That's a story that's partially true, but there's actually a fair amount of abuse of the animal in that situation. It's very self-serving. But when we align all those things and we start from spirit, it all kind of falls into place. But we have to be vigilant and we have to basically train ourselves. This is all about training ourselves.

Cesar Millan: That's why I train humans and rehabilitate dogs. That's my job. I train humans, rehabilitate dogs. You don't have to have a dog to talk to me, because learning how to be with a dog is learning how to be in life, period. It's good for you to be a good pack member at home. You need to know what your position is and just contribute to the family. Bring good energy, good philosophy, good action. Even if you're in the back of the pack or the middle of the pack or the front of the pack, it's not only the front of the pack that has to have good energy. He has to be in that position and he has to be the fittest — not only physically, but spiritually, instinctually, emotionally, and mentally. With the body to take care of all those four energies.

So otherwise, it doesn't matter what position you are in the pack. Bring good energy, good philosophy, good actions. And one way that you can achieve this every single day is having a great relationship with a dog. It just makes you a good human. Everybody wins that way. It's not about training the dog. It's about training the human to be a good human. And then that human is going to have good everything, because that's what his energy and philosophy and actions are all about. So imagine if the world is led by good humans.

Andrew Huberman: Yeah, that's a beautiful image. Well, Cesar, I am immensely grateful for you coming here today. You are incredibly knowledgeable, incredibly wise. Your energy is tangible from the moment somebody meets you. It's a real thing. I can say that having experienced it in the room. I'm sure people listening are hearing it and feeling it as well. You also have an incredible relationship to the spiritual of animals and humans, and a real wish for humanity and for animals. And your relationship to the things that are timeless — the past, the present, what happens next — it's really incredible. I said it before, I'll say it again: you're the man. You're also incredibly wise and you're a virtuoso of bringing together information in practical ways that people can not just learn how to take care of their dog and themselves better, but as you pointed out, be a better human. So that's it.

Cesar Millan: You're a special one. Thank you so much.

Andrew Huberman: Thank you.