One more portrait (above) of Nu Nu the Demon Chihuahua from the first episode of Cesar Millan's tv series The Dog Whisperer. The forever-notorious pilot first aired in 2004, and remains a highlight of the show's dvd releases and often cited as Cesar's website. Nu Nu was planely unforgettable.

In a follow-up report on Nu Nu, Tina nearly returned Nu Nu to chihuahua rescue, but the dog's overt love and reliance on her and her alone made it too agonizing to betray him. But a dog that seemed to hate everybody else in the world is always a heartbreak.

Frequently it's the owner's fault that a dog misbehaves this badly. A dog too tiny to cause great harm can be "encouraged" to behave in a mean manner as though it were comical.

It's not comical. But only after the behavior has been reinforced might an owner realize no one can stand the little shit and it's a misery whenever there are friends or family about and a dog just never accepts them.

But in this case Tina had not been the primary cause of Nu Nu's behavior, as it grew predominantly out of a tramatized early life. He had been found wandering the streets of San Luis Obispo, wild and unsocialized. Tina adopted him from the chihuahua rescue shelter, thinking he was merely afraid and would calm down with love.

He was totally feral, and more than a little neurotic, perhaps never fully trusting that the improvements in his life were apt to last. Though he soon bonded with Tina, one of his methods of showing immeasurable gratitude was by a degree possessive territoriality that would deny her any other company but his own.

After months of patient effort Nu Nu was still an unmanageable hellion, until Cesar arrived to intervene. Tina was lateer to say, "I could have never dreamed that a little four-pound terror of a dog and Cesar Millan, a man I had never heard of would change the course of my life forever."

You can watch the relevant squences on this youtube clip (above this paragraph, and the rest below) in which the devil-chi goes from growling nipper to well behaved in what's edited to look like scant minutes. The entire episode is shown in four segments, but only the first two are about Nu Nu.