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"  What, you were expecting peace and quiet, muchachas? Cesar Millan may be known as the Dog Whisperer, but in his kitchen on a recent afternoon, there is not a moment of silence. When Millan and his wife, Ilusion, aren&amp;#039;t taking turns bobbling a friend&amp;#039;s baby on their knees or admiring their youngest son&amp;#039;s new braces, they are talking excitedly. Often at the same time.  It&amp;#039;s a Latino thing, Cesar explains: &amp;quot;Everything is so loud.&amp;quot; Ilusion agrees: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m naturally a loud person. It can be a bit overpowering. I&amp;#039;m just sharing my feelings, you know?&amp;quot; Her husband, looking trim in a V-neck sage-colored T-shirt and faded jeans, continues, &amp;quot;I feel like I&amp;#039;m regulating the volume of my wife&amp;#039;s intensity. Like\u2014&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s so true,&amp;quot; interjects Ilusion, vibrant in a hot pink sleeveless turtleneck and pants ironed to a sharp crease. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s like, `Honey, okay, we understand. But there are neighbors!&amp;#039; &amp;quot;  Yes, that&amp;#039;s right: When the Dog Whisperer talks to the woman he says domesticated him\u2014call her the Man Whisperer\u2014 he&amp;#039;s lucky to get a word in edgewise. &amp;quot;When we&amp;#039;re in a restaurant,&amp;quot; the D.W. says, &amp;quot;and she gets into that, you know, stage, I have to say, `I&amp;#039;m right here. Look! I can totally hear you.&amp;#039; &amp;quot;  The M.W. nods, smiling. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re both very animated,&amp;quot; she says.  &amp;quot;Let me tell the story,&amp;quot; the D.W. says in the same calm, assertive tone that he uses with the unruly dogs on his weekly hit TV show (now in its sixth season on the National Geographic Channel). And at first, the correction seems to take.  &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m sorry, baby,&amp;quot; the M.W. responds, her voice warm like she means it. A beat later, though, that&amp;#039;s out the window. The M.W. has something she just has to say.  So it goes, for more than two hours: Cesar, 40, and Ilusion, 34, jabbing and parrying, cross-talking, even bickering. What other couples might see as exhausting, however, the Millans, perched side by side on tall stools, treat as a blessing\u2014because there was a time they had trouble communicating at all. Today, more than 10 million viewers a week hear the D.W. repeat, mantralike, that he rehabilitates dogs and trains people. What few know is that before he became the Dog Whisperer, his wife rehabilitated him.  &amp;quot;She gave leadership to the relationship,&amp;quot; the D.W. says, recalling the dark day 15 years ago when Ilusion\u2014fed up with her husband&amp;#039;s harsh indifference\u2014moved out with their infant son.  &amp;quot;He was having a hard time loving me, because of his past, because he just wasn&amp;#039;t a people person,&amp;quot; Ilusion says, leaning forward so her knees almost touch her husband&amp;#039;s. &amp;quot;He was afraid to love anybody.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t do it with humans, that&amp;#039;s all,&amp;quot; Cesar says, matter-of-factly. &amp;quot;I was there in my heart, but my heart was blocked.&amp;quot;  When Cesar was growing up on a farm in Culiac\u00E1n, Mexico, his affinity for canines earned him the nickname El Perrero, or &amp;quot;the dog man.&amp;quot; It also got him teased. He was that weird kid who related better to animals than to his own species. Plus, he was dirt-poor. So from early on, he believed that people could hurt you, but dogs\u2014never! Determined to become the world&amp;#039;s best dog trainer, Cesar crossed the border illegally at age 21. Arriving in Los Angeles, he washed limousines while trying to build a clientele.  From the moment a 17-year-old Ilusion saw Cesar in a crowded ice rink, she says, &amp;quot;I knew this was the guy for me.&amp;quot; Cesar, then 23 and living in a one-room apartment with six dogs, wasn&amp;#039;t so sure. When a friend told him he could go to jail (and surely be deported) for dating an underage girl, he broke off their fledgling romance. He was blunt, Ilusion says. &amp;quot;I came to the door and pressed the bell, and he said, `I can&amp;#039;t see you anymore.&amp;#039; It killed me.&amp;quot;  But it didn&amp;#039;t deter her. There was something about Cesar&amp;#039;s focus, his drive, that made her feel safe. The day she turned 18, she showed up at his door again, and soon they were inseparable. When, a few months later, she discovered she was pregnant, Cesar immediately proposed. Before their wedding, which he paid for, he washed the limousine they&amp;#039;d ride in himself.  Cesar says he was happy to exchange vows\u2014 he believed in family\u2014but saw his wife more as a necessary encumbrance than as an equal partner. Ilusion knew her husband&amp;#039;s rural upbringing was culturally very different from her middle-class Mexican-American youth (her dad owns a precision machine business). Still, she was surprised by how coldly judgmental her new husband was. &amp;quot;Cesar didn&amp;#039;t know better,&amp;quot; she says now. &amp;quot;He was raised that women are last on the food chain. You feed everyone else first, including the dog.&amp;quot;  At the time, Cesar says, he believed he was fulfilling the man&amp;#039;s role: working to make money to feed his family. But he was never around, and when he did come home, &amp;quot;If he didn&amp;#039;t get what he wanted, he was verbally abusive,&amp;quot; Ilusion says, &amp;quot;screaming at the top of his lungs.&amp;quot;  When their first son, Andre, was one year old, Ilusion was rushed to the hospital for emergency gall bladder surgery. She almost died, she says, but Cesar didn&amp;#039;t visit her until days after the surgery. &amp;quot;He came to visit for two hours, but he was like, `I can&amp;#039;t believe you&amp;#039;re sick.&amp;#039; He was so annoyed.&amp;quot; And the day she came home, &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s like, `I&amp;#039;ve got to get back to my dogs.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Not long after, Ilusion told Cesar goodbye. He was stunned.  &amp;quot;I asked God: `Why you give me the strongest, most stubborn woman in the world?&amp;#039; &amp;quot; he says. Mimicking what he&amp;#039;d seen his father and uncles do, &amp;quot;I just focused on everything she did wrong,&amp;quot; he says, a list that went &amp;quot;all the way from Alaska to Argentina. I thought it was going to keep her calm and submissive.&amp;quot;  Instead, it sent her packing, and Cesar admits his ego was bruised. When he called her, crying, asking her to come home, she said there was just one way she&amp;#039;d consider it: They had to go to counseling. The idea went against every macho value he held dear. But he didn&amp;#039;t refuse. &amp;quot;I threw my little temper tantrum and all that, but from that moment on, I didn&amp;#039;t stop thinking: So what do I need to do so I can gain my family back?&amp;quot;  It was in counseling that Cesar experienced what the couple calls his &amp;quot;lightbulb moment,&amp;quot; when the therapist urged Ilusion to tell Cesar what she wanted. Here is how the couple, sitting together in the kitchen, recall the scene.  Ilusion: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m like, `I really want you to listen. I want you to be there in our household. I don&amp;#039;t want to be treated like a piece of property. And honey, you know, I want you to tell me that you love me,&amp;#039; because he never did.&amp;quot;  Cesar: &amp;quot;Wait a minute. There was no `honey&amp;#039; in that [speech].&amp;quot;  Ilusion: &amp;quot;Okay, whatever. I was hurt.&amp;quot;  Cesar turns to me. &amp;quot;No, this is my wife when she wants to get some shit across: `Cesar!&amp;#039; &amp;quot; he cries, issuing an avalanche of Spanish invective.  Both Millans agree, however, about what happened next. When Ilusion finished her laundry list of what she needed, Cesar&amp;#039;s face brightened as he looked up from the pad on which he&amp;#039;d been furiously taking notes. To the therapist, he exclaimed: &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s just like dogs!&amp;quot;  The couple jokes about this now, though at the time, were it not for the counselor, Ilusion says she might have stormed out in frustration. The therapist helped her to see that Cesar was using the animals he utterly understood to try to begin to understand one he couldn&amp;#039;t: his wife.  &amp;quot;It wasn&amp;#039;t about me any more,&amp;quot; Cesar says, musing on the moment that led them to reconcile after six months apart. &amp;quot;It was about the pack.&amp;quot;  No single revelation mends all a relationship&amp;#039;s ills. Marriage, as anyone who&amp;#039;s tried it can attest, is an ongoing project. And both Millans are searchers who&amp;#039;ve delved into all manner of selfhelp literature (the D.W. loves Wayne Dyer; the M.W. just read Radical Forgiveness: Making Room for the Miracle, by Colin Tipping). After 16 years together, their goal is to appreciate rather than resent their differences. It&amp;#039;s not always easy.  For example, when Ilusion gets hurt, it can take her a while to get over it. And during that period, as she searches to understand what exactly has led her to feel as she does, she wants Cesar to be sweet to her\u2014even though, she acknowledges, she&amp;#039;s not being very sweet to him.  &amp;quot;But she doesn&amp;#039;t apply the same thing to herself,&amp;quot; Cesar says. When Ilusion is upset, he&amp;#039;s supposed to be patient and cuddle her, &amp;quot;which is opposite of what she&amp;#039;d do if I were going through my process.&amp;quot;  Ilusion appraises him unflinchingly. &amp;quot;Yeah, because he goes to anger. I go to sadness, and for a woman, being sad, you want comforting. A man is like, `I&amp;#039;m pissed. Stay away from me.&amp;#039; &amp;quot;  Cesar&amp;#039;s eyes twinkle. &amp;quot;I would like to have sex with you even though I&amp;#039;m angry.&amp;quot; Ilusion rolls her eyes.  Anyone who&amp;#039;s watched Dog Whisperer With Cesar Millan knows that while dog owners may think their dogs are the problem, actually the problem is them. But interestingly, it is only through his marriage, Cesar says, that he began to understand human behavior. If Ilusion hadn&amp;#039;t moved out in 1995, he says, he would never have gone on to train Will Smith and Jada Pinkett&amp;#039;s dogs, or Oprah Winfrey&amp;#039;s, or those of countless other A-listers. And to this day, without Ilusion to poke him to look inward\u2014when it comes to emotion, he says, &amp;quot;my wife is an expert&amp;quot;\u2014he&amp;#039;d still lack the tools to meet his goals.  Ilusion is quick to say Cesar has broadened her world, as well. During the early years, when she coached him to raise his prices\u2014he used to charge $65 a day (his fees now start around $10,000)\u2014he told her more than once that she had a natural head for business. Insecure, she says, she resisted the suggestion. But when Dog Whisperer began to take off\u2014there have been four best-selling books, a line of pet-care products, a glossy magazine, and instructional videos; he expects to be a $100 million business in a few years\u2014she joined him.  Today, Cesar (who became a U.S. citizen last year) is CEO of Cesar Millan Inc.; Ilusion is its president and co-CEO. Together, the couple have funneled money into charities that promote animal health. Ilusion, once a preschool teacher, has eagerly teamed up with Yale University to develop &amp;quot;Mutt-i-grees,&amp;quot; a curriculum for young children based on the Dog Whisperer&amp;#039;s teachings. And then there&amp;#039;s the Illusion Collar, a device the couple designed to keep the leash high on a dog&amp;#039;s neck, for easier handling.  Like the rest of us, Ilusion sometimes struggles to implement Cesar&amp;#039;s teachings with the family pets. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m the nurturer, so naturally I just want to hug my dog,&amp;quot; she says.  Her husband raises an eyebrow. &amp;quot;I respectfully disagree with that. You don&amp;#039;t frickin&amp;#039; nurture me when I&amp;#039;m unstable.&amp;quot; He turns again to me. &amp;quot;This is a very smart woman, and she will play Monopoly on you and pretend she&amp;#039;s not,&amp;quot; he says, making his wife, who admits she enjoys and excels at games of all kinds, laugh out loud.  &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s reached that state where he has to emote,&amp;quot; she says approvingly. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ve got two people emoting now. It&amp;#039;s like watching a great sitcom.&amp;quot; In fact, 20th Century Fox Television recently greenlit a pilot based on Cesar and Ilusion. Wilmer Valderrama is set to star as the man who is dog&amp;#039;s best friend. (Ilusion&amp;#039;s role is yet to be cast.)  Their real-life plotline, meanwhile, will always include arguing, they say. Their last fight came after Cesar bought a bunch of fencing for the ranch where he is building a Dog Psychology Center, the first of several he hopes to open across the country. The couple had agreed that whenever he spent money, he&amp;#039;d tell his wife so she could update their books. But the D.W. forgot to tell the M.W., and the M.W. blew her stack. Patching things up meant heading back to the kitchen, the place where Cesar says they tend to talk things through. &amp;quot;I sit over there,&amp;quot; he says, pointing to a chair on one side of the table. &amp;quot;My wife will sit there,&amp;quot; he gestures to the other side.  &amp;quot;Or we&amp;#039;ll go to the bedroom,&amp;quot; Ilusion adds. &amp;quot;Depending on the intensity of the situation.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a2449/cesar-millan-the-dog-whisperer-392837/>