A Cal Poly student and her dog, and a little bit of Cal Poly itself, will appear on Friday’s episode of “The Dog Whisperer,” the Discovery Channel’s Emmy-nominated and highest rated show for the past four years.
Animal science senior Nicole Maples brought her Rhodesian ridgeback/pit bull mix dog, Brittany Dawg, to an audition in Camarillo with the hopes of getting on the show.
“She’s really aggressive with people and other dogs,” Maples said. She was so aggressive that Maples, who has another pit bull, has been forced to keep the two separate to prevent dog fights.
The episode is one of two filmed in the Central Coast, and one of four this season that features Cheri Lucas, the Templeton “dog whisperer” and dog behaviorist who runs Second Chance at Love, a Humane Society. Lucas has been friends with Cesar Millan, known as the “Dog Whisperer,” for years.
“I started working with Cesar about 10 years ago when I first started running my humane society. We became great friends and I started training under him — I’m really the only person he’s ever trained, he’s trained two others a little bit but doesn’t consider them his protégés,” she said.
Before working with Brittany, a cameraman came to Cal Poly and filmed Maples performing her duties as manager of the swine unit as background footage.
Then, the work began. Millan showed up at her house in Los Osos to meet her and Brittany, before deciding that the dog needed be taken out of her environment. So he brought Brittany to Lucas’ ranch in Templeton and worked with her that night.
“The next morning I went up there to meet him and she was in a yard running around with eight other dogs and 10 people around… it was pretty amazing that in one night she
was so much better,” Maples said.
This wasn’t the only Central Coast episode filmed; once Maples was selected to appear on the show, the producers called Lucas to see if she had any other dogs Millan could
work with.
“At the time I didn’t, but the next day a woman called me and needed help with her son’s dog. I pitched the idea to the producers and they loved it,” Lucas said. That episode will air Sunday. Millan often uses Lucas’s help in his show.
“Since he’s too busy filming these days to have a pack, he’ll give me a dog for five or six weeks until its rehabilitated and they come up and film it,” she said. The epilogue to the show also features Lucas’ personal footage.
Maples, who hasn’t seen the show yet, is excited to watch it on Friday. “I’m excited to see what actually happened up there when I wasn’t there the night he took her up there,” she said.
She said Millan was great to work with. “I’ve gone to his seminars the year before and he seems nice and down-to-earth but you always wonder in person, what he’s really like. But he was a nice guy even when the cameras were off,” Though Maples and Lucas continue to work on rehabilitating Brittany, Maples said the change that came from
Millan’s visit was remarkable.
“It happens just as fast as what you’re seeing on television, he just met my dog and took over and I saw an improvement,” she said.
The episode will air on the Discovery Channel at 9 p.m. on Friday. The second Central Coast episode will appear on April 24.