The dog featured in Prey was a "high-energy" animal that sometimes made filming difficult, but the cast and crew love her anyway.

While fans and critics have been loving Amber Midthunder in the lead role in Prey, another standout character in the film would be her faithful canine companion, Sarii. The dog was played by an "animal actor" named Coco who was making her feature film debut with the Predator prequel. In fact, Coco was adopted for the film, and without any of that prior movie experience, it sometimes took some patience from the cast and crew to get through certain scenes.

In a new interview with Dexerto, director Dan Trachtenberg touched on Sarii and the dog who portrays her, Coco. Trachtenberg explained how the idea to have the dog featured in the film was inspired by movies like Mad Max: The Road Warrior having a dog serve as a sidekick to the hero. The filmmaker also revealed how Sarii was originally written to have much less screen time, but during production, more and more scenes were given to the canine.

"I love having there be this buddy relationship with this creature, with another animal, amidst a Predator film... We kept on finding more things. “We were trying to get Coco out of scenes but the opposite ended up being true, and we ended up including her more – even in some of the action set-pieces, because I just thought it’d be so fun. One of the great things about Road Warrior is the way Mad Max uses his doggy, so we wanted to have the same kind of fun in this movie as well.”

But using Coco so much was not without its issues. The dog was very energetic, according to Trachtenberg, with sometimes created some difficulties with getting the right take. That just meant that the cast and crew would applaud and presumably let Coco know how much of a good girl she is when she happened to hit her mark perfectly. Here's what Trachtenberg said of working with Coco.

"Super rambunctious. Very energetic. Always a nail-biting moment for us on set, 'Is Coco gonna like, make her mark and do what she needs to do?' It was sometimes a journey to get there, but eventually she always did. It was very exciting, lots of cheers would happen when we finally got a great take with Coco."

Related: Predator: Six Genres and Targets The Character Should Hunt Next

Prey star Amber Midthunder also weighed in on what it was like to work with Coco. According to Midthunder, the dog was certainly a bit of a "hot mess" given her lack of experience with making movies. With that said, there was no one on set getting upset with Coco when certain takes didn't go right, as everyone loves her too much.

"She was a little bit of a hot mess – but in a sweet way. She was not a movie dog, she was literally adopted to be in this movie, and she just happened to be very high-energy. She was such a delight to have around, she was so fun and very playful. And then it would be time to do stuff… sometimes she’d do it, sometimes she wouldn’t. But obviously, it all ended up fine, because she was great, and everybody loves her.”

Prey is now streaming on Hulu.

Jeremy Dick has been a writer and editor since 2014. He is a self-professed horror expert, pop culture enthusiast, and Bob Saget fanatic.