New York Times best-selling author John Grogan and his family recently reached out to another best-selling author — famed “dog whisperer” Cesar Millan — to help control the Grogans’ 2-year-old Labrador Retriever, Gracie.
The Grogans’ problems with the dog included an incident when Gracie killed another household animal, a chicken named Liberace.
“Gracie, she’ll lock in on any small animal and go after it,” said John Grogan, who’s the author of the bestseller “Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog,” about the misadventures of the Grogans’ yellow Labrador Retriever, Marley.
“You look differently at your dog after they’ve eaten another pet,” John Grogan’s wife Jenny said of Gracie.
Recognizing that he has a more serious situation on his hands than an overly rambunctious and playful dog, Grogan called on Cesar Millan and the authors meet on an episode of Milan’s show titled “Dog Whisperer: Bella & Big Boy and Gracie.” It premieres Jan. 5, 2007 on the National Geographic Channel.
In the episode, Millan points out to the Grogans that Gracie, being a Lab, can be gentle and friendly to humans, but she is also by nature a purebred retriever and hunter, and when those instincts go unfulfilled, she lets her aggression out in other ways.
Through a series of exercises, Millan trains Gracie to stay away from the family’s chicken coop and to adopt a calm, submissive energy when around chickens.