The thing that sets Cesar Millan apart from other dog trainers and other people in general is that he understands psychology. As it happens, he specializes in dog psychology. He has never been formally trained, he doesn't have a doctorate, in fact he immigrated to this country illegally. He understands how to be firm with his trainees yet he still maintains tact. The most amazing part of Gladwell's case study I thought was how Millan works his magic on these dogs. According to researchers that were interviewed, Millan has an unparalleled use of body language and physical expression. They mentioned a study in the text comparing the human interaction of both dogs and chimps and found that, "The dog goes to the right cup virtually every time. Yet when Hare did the same experiment with chimpanzees—an animal that shares 98.6 per cent of our genes—the chimps couldn't get it right. A dog will look at you for help, and a chimp won't." This examples the fact that dogs cling to our every movement no matter how subtle or unintended, they look to us for help even when we aren't intentionally providing it. I don't think that Millan knowingly considered this fact, he simply understood because of years of experience around dogs while working on his family's ranch in Mexico. Nonetheless he used even his most discrete body movements to inform the dogs of what he expected of them.
What the article seemed to imply is that dogs understand human movements better than we do ourselves. Cesar became the test subject when Gladwell studied his relationship with his wife. The two had a hard time communicating with each other because they didn't understand the psychology of the other. Millan realized that in the same way he deals with dogs differently than humans, he needed to deal with different people differently as well. A different medium needed to be used as well. The physical cues that he used with dogs couldn't work as well with humans because we don't think in that same way, we aren't wired to. Instead we use vocal communication to convey what we think, and we tend to believe what we are told, even if what is told is not entirely truthful.
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I agree with your points and really like the way you point out Caesar's problems with his wife relate to his lack of understanding that people don't respond to physical cues like dogs. Caesar is so naturally comfortable with the unspoken language of dogs he has a hard time comprehending the verbal one between people. Since he was never formally taught how to train dogs he didn't realize that his natural instincts couldn't automatically cross over to interpersonal relationships.
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