BY KAREN BOSSICK

Celebrity animal trainer Brandon McMillan has stared down a 400-pound Siberian tiger—and gotten it to do what he wanted.

“Physically, I can’t compete with a 400-pound Siberian tiger. But I keep my game face on. I show determination, not weakness,” he says.

A six-pound Maltese or a four-pound Yorkshire Terrier is no different, McMillan says.

Prove wishy-washy with them and they’ll run all over you. But show them the face of a boss who means business and they will obey gladly.

“Animals are always looking for leadership,” he says.

McMillan, longtime host of CBS’ “Lucky Dog Show” and Emmy Award winner, will demonstrate seven simple training tips that any dog owner can use to make their pet a happier pet when he presents a show at The Argyros in Ketchum on behalf of Mountain Humane.

The show will start at 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 29. A fundraiser for Mountain Humane, it is designed to be fun and educational for all ages. Tickets are available at https://theargyros.org  or at 208-726-7872.

McMillan was raised around big animals from Day One. His father and uncle started working for a circus in the United Kingdom after World War II left the United Kingdom in the throes of a depression and they ended up training under some of the world’s top animal trainers.

Eventually, McMillan’s father started his own training company at animal ranches in New Jersey and Florida. And, by the time he was 13 years old, McMillan had more experience with lions, tigers, leopards, bears and elephants than most animal trainers.

It was in California, where he moved at 19 to train animals for Hollywood, that McMillan began working with dogs, creating a “Hybrid System” where he took his knowledge of working with wild animals and applied it to dogs.

“I lived near an animal shelter and I began learning how many dogs couldn’t find homes,” says McMillan, who trained animals for such films as “The Hangover,” “The Jungle Book II,” “I Am Sam,” and “We Bought a Zoo.” “So, my focus shifted from wild animals to domestic dogs. Just like wild animals, dogs respond to positive conditioning. The only ones that are different are reptiles and birds.”

McMillan popularized “7 Common Commands”—Sit, Stay, Down, Come, Off, Heel and No—on his hit television show “Lucky Dog.”

“I began cutting out commands that were infrequently used until I found the most common ones you say to your dog on a daily basis,” he says. “Better to have your dog consistently obey seven commands that you say all the time than to have them sometimes obey 20 commands you rarely say.”

McMillan has heard the stories of dogs who allegedly know a thousand words.

“There’s no evidence dogs understand 120 words,” he says. “They understand simple words and they understand emotion. But if you’re sitting here telling me your dog can hit buttons connecting words, I’m not buying that.”

“I could teach dogs a hundred words but it’s the basic commands like ‘Stay’ that are important,” he adds.

Dogs are 100 percent in tune with our emotions, McMillan said.

“Our body goes through chemical changes as our emotions change. Whenever our emotions change, they pick up on it and smell what’s going on. They understand when chemical scents change—smell is their most power sense. That’s how they can detect seizures before they happen or blood sugar drops in diabetic people.”

Often dog owners don’t think through the consequences of what they do, McMillan says.

Why would you give a dog a treat to quiet it down when it barks too much? “You’re rewarding negative behavior!”

The best thing a pet owner can do is to form a relationship with their animal, McMillan says.

“We earn people’s trust when we spend time with them,” he says. “If you don’t trust a human, you don’t want to be around them. Same with dogs. Spend time with them. Earn their trust. They’ll want to be around you, and they’ll want to please you.”

McMillan’s workload tripled during the pandemic as people adopted dogs and cats, then wondered how best to handle them. While you can teach housecats a few simple things, they’re more of a wild animal, McMillan says.

“Dogs are extremely domesticated animals. Dogs understand obedience. They have wild animal traits, but they’re not wild animals,” he adds.

One of the best things a would-be pet owner can do is to research a dog’s breed before adopting it, McMillan says. Dogs were bred for a specific purpose--as the Fed Ex delivery man, the iPhone, the security guard and the exterminator--in the days before humans and machines performed those jobs. Get the wrong breed, and you’d better learn how to be more accommodating to your dog.

Huskies, for instance, aren’t going to be content sitting on the couch when they were bred as freight haulers to pull sleds. If you want a lap dog, get a Maltese. Beagles have such powerful noses that they  can’t always focus on what you’re telling them.

“How you raise them can’t change what they were bred to do—they’re driven by instinct,” McMillan says.

McMillan recently ended his show on CBS after seven years. But his new StrayRecon show on the  YouTube channel, which focuses on his work with stray dogs from Greece to California, is gaining traction.

He trained a Doberman, for instance, to provide physical assistance for a veteran who lost both legs in Afghanistan. The dog holds open doors for him, picks up objects around the house, and stiffens his shoulders, becoming a cane when the veteran needs to get up.

He trained Oliver, a poodle mix stray he rescued from the streets of Los Angeles, to be a therapy dog for children testifying against abusive parents.

“Oliver, who now lives in Missouri, is one of the few such therapy dogs in America,” McMillan says. “He calms down kids between the ages of 7 and 12 who are absolutely terrified. He relieves their anxiety and tension.”