The number one mistake that dog owners make is treating their dog like a human being instead of a canine.

This was the word from Cheri Wulff Lucas, former right hand to famed dog trainer and television personality Cesar Millan.

Ms Lucas, a dog behaviourist who lives in California, will be running a four day intensive workshop on dog behaviour and training at the Coral Beach & Tennis Club in November.

She was on the Island this week to promote the upcoming workshop.

“I have always had a love for animals, particularly dogs,” she said. “Years ago, I saw a huge need for animal rescue where I was living in California.

“There were a lot of dogs not being spayed or neutered and a lot of puppies being born, and dogs were being euthanised at local shelters by the hundreds because there weren’t enough shelters for them. It just broke my heart.”

She started the Second Chance at Love Humane Society on her 20 acre property in Templeton, California.

She adopted a policy of taking any dog regardless of age, temperament and breeding.

She became known as the person who would take any dog. Unfortunately, rehoming the dogs was another story.

“It got depressing because it felt like I was just warehousing the dogs and they weren’t going anywhere,” she said. “They were going to live out their lives at my shelter.

“I didn’t know anything about dogs, their behaviour and how they are fulfilled.

“I was a typical ‘humaniac’ all I knew was love, love, love and didn’t know how to lead. I knew I needed some help.”

She turned to a dog trainer in Los Angeles called Cesar Milan — before the days of his television show, The Dog Whisperer, and before he learned to speak English.

“I called him,” said Ms Lucas. “I speak fluent Spanish. He would bring his family and his dogs up to my ranch.

He lived in South Central, Los Angeles and couldn’t do anything with his dogs off leash.

“I thought he was just going to fix my dogs and go away, maybe coming back once in a while. But he said, I had to learn how to train them myself.”

Their friendship continued and years later when The Dog Whisperer, started up, Ms Lucas helped rehabilitate some of the dogs on the show and made them show ready.

Sometimes she appeared in an episode, but more often her work was strictly behind the scenes.

“It was Cesar’s show,” she said. “I worked nine seasons on that show and then went to Spain to do two seasons with him, one in English and one in Spanish.”

Ms Lucas now has her own television show in the works. She just shot a pilot for the show that will be called Oh, Behave.

She parted company with Mr Millan’s team last year and is now doing her own workshops around the world with Brian Agnew.

“I really believe strongly that we humanise dogs too much,” she said. “We don’t honour dogs as dogs. We can still love them, but we need to fulfil all their needs based on who they are. A dog might want a rawhide bone, but you don’t want that.”

She said humans are pack oriented, but dogs are pure pack animals.

If the dog’s human owners do not establish themselves as leaders of the pack, it causes the dog to act out and misbehave.

“We have a tendency to give them excessive amounts of affection and very little of anything else,” she said. “Ninety-nine percent of my clients make that mistake.”

When we spoke with Ms Lucas she had already helped Kendaree Burgess with her dog.

Ms Burgess has what she jokingly calls a “sheperoo”, a cross between a German shepherd, a chow and a Labrador retriever.

Her neighbours dubbed it the ‘sheperoo’ because although it is two feet high it can jump about six feet into the air.

This can be very intimidating to visitors to her house.

“I thought I was smart because on the outside of my fence I put a little bucket with toys in it,” she said. “There is a sign on the outside of the gate that says ‘If you come to the door, throw a toy’.

“He would run and bring it back to you. Therefore he is too entertained to jump on the person. If there were no toys in the bucket then he leaps. If you have on something nice you don’t want this kangaroo jumping.”

Ms Lucas gave her a simple solution to the problem, teach him to be in a particular place when company comes to call.

“I don’t think this dog has listened to any real commands he has been given except ‘sit’,” said Ms Burgess. “I tried the place exercise and it worked; the dog stayed on the rug.

“You don’t know how shocked I was. It took five minutes at the most. I left the room, and he stayed there.”

Ms Lucas said Ms Burgess’ dog probably just needed a little direction.

Since she hadn’t given him any when people came to visit, he made up his own rules.

There are 15 spaces available in the November workshops.

The workshop will be for Coral Beach members, but if there are any places left over after Coral Beach members sign up they will go to the general public.

The general public is urged to contact Ms Lucas to be put on the waiting list, if they wish to take part.

The cost of the workshop will be $5,000 with a dog, and $4,200 without a dog. Lunch will be included and there will be a special, graduation dinner.

While on the Island in November, Ms Lucas will also be doing some charity work, helping a local pit bull advocacy group called Our Misunderstood.

For more information contact doggierehab@gmail.com, or Jordan Browne at pawsitivetouch.bm@gmail.com.

Also see secondchancelove.org, cherilucasdogbehavior.com, or lucasagnew.com.