Not just another pretty face!

Readers who attended the Orange County Pet Expo on the 14th of April may know Sabrina the pit bull from her role as Cesar’s latest leading lady, prancing up and down the stage parading the new Illusion collar for a packed house. But the children in her Santa Ana neighborhood have a somewhat different picture of her. To them, she’s more role model than runway model – a shining example of the triumph of the positive pack mentality over red line aggression.

Sabrina was only 5 months old when she was found on the streets by the neighborhood kids and delivered into the hands of her new guardians. Her previous caretakers owned several other fighting dogs, and it was agreed that it would be in her best interest to make the adoption official. But her new home life met with a rocky beginning when she began to exhibit outward signs of dominant behavior (even lifting her leg to pee!) and challenged Buster, the resident family pit bull, for control of the house.

Her new family made the call to Cesar Millan, a dog psychologist they had seen in a Peter Jennings interview, and started her on the road to recovery. Before Cesar, Sabrina was impossible to take for a walk. It was, in the words of her guardian, “like dragging a chariot down the street.” These days, the walk is a pleasure for everyone. Though as eager to please and as high-energy as ever, Sabrina still maintains strict discipline around people and animals. Now seven years old, she’s rarely demanding of attention and very patient about her exercise routine. She gets her kicks hiking and swimming, and enjoys a renewed relationship with her housemate, Buster. To the kids living on her street, she’s a marvel. Each with his or her own dog, they crowd around, eager to learn the secret that turned a temperamental fighting dog into such a picture of perfect behavior.