“The Dog Whisperer” is the anchor property of a booming business built around Millan, who has become the Wayne Dyer of the dog set. His show is the launching pad for the kind of brand building activity that would make even the most sophisticated consumer marketer envious. Millan has leveraged “The Dog Whisperer” into the following successful ventures:

• A series of best-selling books
• The “Mastering Leadership” DVD series
• “Sessions with Cesar,” an online coaching course
• The “Illusion Collar and Dog Leash Training Set” (Illusion is Cesar’s wife)
• A line of Dog Whisperer dog food, treats and other branded products, sold exclusively at Petco
• A program of live appearances in the US that will be extended to the UK in March 2010
• The launch of “Cesar’s Way” magazine in September 2009, designated one of the top five magazine launches of 2009 by the Magazine Innovation Center
• The “Dog Psychology Center,” which Millan recently moved from Los Angeles to a 43-acre site outside the city – a model for future expansion nationwide
• CesarsWay.com, a website that consolidates all of Millan’s merchandise and product offerings into a central location.

Millan and his wife also run the Cesar and Illusion Millan Foundation, an organization that supports and funds programs to help rescue, rehabilitate, and re-home abused and abandoned dogs.

How Millan got his start is already a Hollywood legend, in part because he has helped movie stars become better pack leaders with their dogs. Almost twenty years ago, Millan entered the United States illegally, worked for a time as a groomer, and then offered to help people with dog behavior problems. He became an American citizen this year.

The Millan magic is the unspoken way he connects with dogs, and how he translates that into helping their owners. Millan likes to say “I rehabilitate dogs and I train people.” Actress Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of actor Will Smith, was one of Millan’s first clients in the early 1990s and is widely acknowledged as the person who gave Cesar his first big break. According to an article about Millan in The New York Times, “As he helped [Pinkett Smith] become pack leader to four huge Rottweilers, they became friends… She credits him with helping her have good relationships with both canine and humans.”

Pinkett Smith encouraged Millan to get tutored in English, and that gave him the confidence to offer his training services to a larger clientele. A newspaper article about Millan in 2002 drew interest from television producers, eventually leading to the creation of “The Dog Whisperer.” The National Geographic Channel agreed to air it, but only if the show’s producers, MPH Entertainment, would cover the costs. The deal paid off since MPH retained copyrights and the producers and Millan himself received a substantial stake in the revenue.

It was Cesar’s magnetic personality, though, that made the show a success. Jim Milio of MPH told The New York Times, “I’ve met three people who had that kind of magic. One was Jacques Cousteau. One was Jim Henson. And the third is Cesar.”

Cesar’s “exercise, discipline, and affection” mantra has resounded even beyond the dog world. According to a November 22 article in The New York Times, “The suggestion that the Dog Whisperer is also a Child Whisperer of sorts has popped up – sometimes couched as a joke, but, well, not really – in parents’ forums like blogs, online discussion boards, magazines, Twitter feeds and podcasts.”

But Cesar Millan doesn’t need to make disciplining children part of his repertoire – he’s doing just fine working with canines. MPH Entertainment expects Millan’s business ventures to be worth $100 million “in a few years.” Not bad for a guy who’s gone to the dogs.

Barry Silverstein has been a frequent brandchannel contributor since 2007. He has thirty years of advertising and marketing experience and is currently a freelance writer and marketing consultant. He founded and ran his own direct marketing agency and held executive positions with Epsilon, a leading database marketing firm and Arnold, a major ad agency. Silverstein is the author of three marketing books, including the McGraw-Hill book, The Breakaway Brand, which he co-authored with Arnold CEO Fran Kelly.