National Geographics "The Dog Whisperer", Cesar Millan visited our hospital in September 2006 to help a very special dog that had been living with us for 2 years.

Howie, a Shepherd/Lab mix, found us as a horrible abuse case where an electrical cord had been wrapped so tightly around his neck, that he had a 2 inch deep, infected cut 360 degrees around his entire throat.  His former owners where later convicted with animal abuse and neglect.  Howie healed after months of painful treaments, his wound could not be stitched shut due to the infection and had to be treated and cleaned like a burn wound.

Our terrified patient slowly learned to love the entire staff.  We were hopeful of finding him his own family and home.  Howie had other ideas.

Howie's new love for our staff stopped there, with just our staff.  Any one visiting or meeting him for the first time would get growled and barked at.  No matter how hard new people tried to get close to him, he would scare them off.  We had all resigned ourselves to the fact that Howie would live in the hospital for the rest of his life. 

Then a few of our employees had and idea, why not submit Howie's story to Cesar for help.  With video camera in hand and footage of Howie barking at everyone we sent a tape to California.  Much to our surprise, a few weeks later we found Cesar was going to be in Atlanta and was willing to come help us.

The effect that Cesar had on our staff and Howie was amazing.  Within minutes Cesar had us all "calm and assertive" and had taken positive control of Howie, no barking involved.  Cesar spent over 9 hours with us that day working with the entire staff and Howie.  The entire day was filmed for airing on an upcoming show, but you could see Cesar truly was there to help Howie, most of his training was not even filmed. 

Following Cesar's instructions turned Howie completly around.  With daily walks around town Howie learned to meet and trust new people at our bank, the hair salon, Starbucks, etc.  When his show aired in January we got calls and emails from all over the country of people who wanted to give Howie a home.  Lucky for us, a wonderful local Woodstock couple starting visiting Howie and taking him out for walks to get to know him.  It was love at first sight and at the time of this writing Howie is on a couch, in front of a fire laying between his new mom and dad.  What an experience and what a dog.