Lori Ovanessian and her chihuahua Bandit (above) are from an episode of Cesar Millan's The Dog Whisperer. Bandit bit everyone except Lori until retrained with Cesar's help.

Lori had gotten Bandit via internet ad, a gift for her son Tyler. The dog was an unbelievably good looking little fellow, as the photo at left more than adequately conveys.

Due to her own patience, it took her about two weeks to realize she'd inherited someone else's burden, for Bandit was quite the biter.

It was discovered right away he needed treatment for mange. He turned out to be the product of a puppymill where dogs are bred in great numbers with poor health management and little or no human contact.

He had such hellfire in him, he might just as well have come from the jungles around Machu Picchu he was so wild, except to Lori, in whose shirt he liked to hide, all day long if allowed, and would bite Tyler in order to stay with Lori.

Three trainers had failed to change Bandit's behavior, but just about anyone and their dog can claim to be a trainer nowadays, it's not like you have to produce a certificate of qualification.

As with most such aggressive chihuahuas, they don't want to cause damage by biting so much as they want to have their way, and if they get it, their behavior is reinforced. Cesar immediately taught blocking techniques so that no amount of aggression would get Bandit what he wanted, which was for Tyler or Cesar or anyone but Lori to go away.

Unfortunately, Lori was horrified by Cesar's confrontational tactics, thinking her little dog was being terrorized given Bandit's neurotic response to his failure to scare Cesar awaay.

And if Cesar could not convince the adults of the household to change their behavior, Bandit would persist in his.

Quite angered by Lori's over-protectiveness and reinforcement of Bandit's behavior, he charged her with chosing her dog over her son, permitting the dog to be abusive to Tyler and to strangers.

In Season 5, a special episode of the show spliced together several of the problem chihuahuas Cesar had helped deal with, including not only Bandit, but also Nu Nu, El Diablo cum Sammy, longhaired Paris, Nacho, Stanley, and mastiff-dominating Amalie.

Paris, aka Pesky Paris, is shown top-right, with owners Nelson Chang and Jhett Brown, and -center-right with Cesar and his wife Ilusion, and bottom-right wearing a feather boa.

We first met Paris in season one of the series. She was gentle and loving to her owners but around strangers her barking and nipping was beyond Nelson and Jhett's control, and the best they could hope from Paris was that she'd hide while people were present.

Our dog whisperer felt Paris's issues had more to do with her housebound dull life than anything else. Her only real activity was begging for food, and even encouraging dogs to beg feeds into the frustrations of their lives.

Cesar started the re-training of the owners on how to properly walk their pet so that the greater world will reward and fascinate her with its smells and random encounters and opportunity to be doing something she enjoys with the people she loves.

Stanley, "a surly chihuahua mix," is getting a lesson on who's the boss in the photo bottom-top, with owner Allison Smith learning too. The second photo (below-lower) shows Stanley already improved just from getting enthralled by a walk. He was aggressive to other animals and people, and if she tried to lock him in the bedroom so he couldn't trouble visitors, he'd try to bite her for doing something that displeased him.