 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Dog reluctant to cry wolf, even for TV
By KATHERINE GAZELLA © St. Petersburg Times, published November 10, 2000 PALM HARBOR -- Her tan coat shiny and freshly brushed, Princess was in the spotlight.
"What a smart dog," said another. And from the guy responsible for putting Princess on an Animal Planet cable television show: "Are you going to bark for me?" Her owners tried to help. "She always barks when someone is at the door," said Derek Kaplan, 16. For a while, it wasn't looking good. The dog had barked when a fire was burning in the Kaplans' back yard last year, so she had to -- had to -- bark in Thursday's re-enactment. The sheltie's owners and a visiting camera crew tried everything, from knocking on the kitchen counter to pretending someone was at the front door. Princess looked around quizzically and didn't make a peep. But hours later, with the camera focused on her, Princess came through. At the clicking sound of a cap gun, she barked like crazy. "She doesn't like guns," owner Wendy Kaplan explained. With that, the day was a success. Television producer Chris Marino successfully taped a segment about Princess for the Breed All About It program that runs on the Animal Planet cable channel. The segment will air sometime in late January or early February on a show featuring shelties, Marino said. "They're very alert dogs," he said. "It's not surprising that this dog did this." The events on Thursday were a re-enactment of an incident that happened a year and a half ago, when a fire burned in the Kaplans' back yard. Princess jumped on the bed of Derek Kaplan, who was taking an after-school nap, and barked excitedly. Kaplan got up and went to the front door, assuming that was why the dog was barking. Nobody was there, and he noticed Princess had gone into another bedroom, one that looked out onto the back yard. He followed her and saw the fire. He put out the fire with a garden hose, and probably prevented damage to the house because of the quick action, according to firefighters who arrived later. "It could have been real serious," said Palm Harbor fire Lt. Jim Fisher. He said the cause of the fire was never determined. Fisher was there for the re-enactment. He and two others drove up to the house with the lights flashing on the firetruck, just as they were on the day of the real fire. Marino interviewed him about the scene and had Fisher leave his radio on, with all its beeps and drawn-out static sounds. He said it added authenticity to the scene. "It's cool stuff," Marino said. "We love it." Marino went through the entire sequence of events with Kaplan and Princess. After a long and unsuccessful search for a chair that didn't swivel, he had Kaplan sit in a chair for a long interview. Everybody kept asking Kaplan if he was nervous. "I'm not nervous," he said. His mother laughed. "Mr. Suave," she said. "Mr. Cool," said his dad, Mark. Marino asked Derek Kaplan the same questions over and over: What happened that day? What did you do when you saw the fire? And he reminded him, "If you say anything wrong, just say it again." Marino and a videographer later taped the scene in the back yard, except for the fire, which will be added later as a special effect. "You'll have to picture the fire" while the scene is being taped, he said. For Princess, the nearly seven-hour taping was a trying experience. But she was rewarded for all her hard work with a steady supply of bone-shaped doggie snacks. "She went through about 20 of them today," Derek Kaplan said. It was a long day for everybody, but nobody felt the burden more than Princess, the hero. "At the beginning she was a little shy. Then she got real active," Kaplan said. "Now she's just lying on my bed, dead." - Staff writer Katherine Gazella can be reached at (727) 445-4182 or gazella@sptimes.com.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times North Pinellas desks |
