How many times have you seen this happen?
You visit a friend’s or family member’s house and while you’re there, their fur baby misbehaves. They bark, they jump, maybe they may even try to nip at someone. All the while, the owner seems helpless, unable to calm their pet.
UC Davis anthropologist Nana Moraes was this person back in 2012 when she rescued her dog Loui in Brazil.
“After like three months of living with me, he became aggressive with people, with other dogs, and I started to remember the other animals I had in my life,” said Moraes, who at the time worked as a lawyer specializing in civil law. “All of them were agitated, or a little aggressive or just behaved weird.”
Moraes, a passionate animal rights activist who’s rescued more than 100 animals, realized the common denominator wasn’t the animals, it was her.
“I was always angry, irritated and anxious,” she recalled.
Moraes wondered if she was doing something to instill such emotions in her pet. She ended up finding answers in a popular television show.
How emotions affect pets: lessons from the Dog Whisperer
Seeking a solution to Loui’s aggression, Moraes started watching the television show Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan.
Everything changed after that.
Employing Millan’s techniques, Moraes focused on her energy, or emotions. Her presence, her voice, these things she projected affected Loui and his behavior. When around Loui, Moraes remained calm, doing her best to prevent any personal agitation or anxiety from trickling down to him. The result was like the difference between night and day.
“Before, when I walked Loui, I held the leash tightly with my shoulders tense, and Loui reacted by pulling and barking,” Moraes recalled. “When I relaxed and became confident, Loui changed too.”
This transference of emotions between human and pet became a focal point for Moraes.
Moraes learned from watching Millan that, often, pet owners mistake agitation for happiness and end up rewarding their dogs with affection, food or walks — especially when they return home and are greeted with excitement. As a result, dogs begin to associate anxiety with something positive.
Ideally, rewards should only be given when they are calm, so they learn to value that state and remain more relaxed overall.
Moraes’s success using Millan’s techniques inspired her to pursue graduate studies in the Department of Anthropology with a focus on human-animal communication.
For Moraes, pursuing a doctorate was a logical next step in her mission to help pets and owners live their best lives. It’s allowing her to explore through anthropological and animal behavior methods why Millan is so successful.
“He’s changing a lot of lives,” Moraes said. “My life was changed because of his techniques.”
Do modern lifestyles cause pet anxiety?
The domesticated life of modern pets is a far cry from their ancestral past. In the wild, canines and felines weren’t anxious — they lived according to their instincts, with daily exercise, stimulation and social interaction.
Domestication changed that.
Today, many pets spend long hours confined indoors, without the need to hunt, explore or even interact with others of their species.
“Cesar Millan always says that a balanced life requires exercise, discipline, and affection — in that order,” said Moraes. “It’s about walking your dog, setting a daily rhythm and only then offering affection as a reward for a calm state of mind.”
Transferring emotional energy
Since starting her doctoral program, Moraes’ focus on how human emotions affect animals has expanded into a broader investigation. With guidance from Professors of Anthropology Tarek Elhaik and Smriti Srinivas, she has deepened her inquiry by exploring not only the emotional connection between humans and animals but also the media techniques that shape this relationship.
Moraes’ work now considers Cesar Millan not just as a trainer, but as a kind of modern spiritual guide whose “curation of calm” blends affect, visual aesthetics and therapeutic performance.
Moraes continues to explore how emotional energy is transmitted across species — but now through the lens of media, cultural authority and affective pedagogy.
This fall, Moraes will start fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation. She’ll conduct observational studies to explore if Millan’s methods can be applied in animal rehabilitation centers and veterinary offices, including for bigger animals like horses. The research is driven by a desire to promote animal welfare.
“We often fail to stop and truly listen to what animals need,” Moraes said. “When behavioral issues arise, we blame the animals instead of asking how our own energy or lifestyle may be contributing to the problem.”
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