Question for Tom
- Thread starter lisa127
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You can Google it and see the actual filming of that scene. The dog was clearly NOT wanting to be pushed into that water.
I know both people in that video and they are friends. I have no idea what was going on that day, but we all have rough days on set. Both of those trainers are good people, excellent trainers, very experienced, and I've worked with both of them for 20 years. Looks like they had an awkward moment and someone filmed it. What is not shown is how they prepped the dog for days or weeks prior to this shot, or how they worked out a reasonable solution to get the shot.
We could go on for hours, but suffice to say, we frequently train for one thing and then when we arrive on set to film, its something completely different. Sometimes this is done deliberately on the part of the production and sometimes its an honest oversight. We all have to try to make it work. Neither of those two trainers in the video would ever harm an animal, and neither of them would let an animal come to harm. Still, there is always an element of risk, and there is always the unknown elements. We do our best to make it all work and come together. It would not surprise me to learn that this dog was jumping in to the water on its own and happy to do it, but the wind machines (ritter fans) were probably never mentioned to the trainers ahead of time, and all that wind, probably caused the dog to balk. You can see in the video how the trainer was trying to ease the dog in but he accepted the dogs repeated refusals and pulled him back up.
All of this is speculation. I'm just guessing based on my knowledge of the business and my personal working relationship with these trainers. Tell you what… I'll call them and ask. I've got a job going with the lady trainer in the video next week. A tortoise job!
The animal rights groups are after us. They think any animal that is in captivity, including our tortoises and our dogs and cats, is a slave and would literally be better off dead. That is why the PETA and HSUS shelters have far higher kill ratios than any county shelter. Its their job to ruin people like me, and they are paid to do their job by good people who love animals and want to do the right thing, but don't understand the fight we are in. Its not even a fair fight. The animal rights groups get millions in donations to attack us with, but people like me are busy trying to earn a living and go about my daily business. We are being attacked left and right, but we have no means of defense, other than the majority of people understanding right from wrong. That is where the underhanded tactics of lying and deceit come in. The animal rights groups, lie, cheat and steal their way to victory after victory, while people like me and the trainers in this video get steamrolled time after time. If people only knew the truth, these groups would end overnight. The public's emotions are easily swayed with a photo and some sad music, but we never get a chance to have our side of the story heard. Politicians with an agenda pass ridiculous law after law and the snowball keeps rolling down hill and gaining size.
If we don't all band together to stop the animal rightists, and get the truth out, we are all going to be very sorry. Go to here to USARK to learn more and fight back: http://usark.org
We could go on for hours, but suffice to say, we frequently train for one thing and then when we arrive on set to film, its something completely different. Sometimes this is done deliberately on the part of the production and sometimes its an honest oversight. We all have to try to make it work. Neither of those two trainers in the video would ever harm an animal, and neither of them would let an animal come to harm. Still, there is always an element of risk, and there is always the unknown elements. We do our best to make it all work and come together. It would not surprise me to learn that this dog was jumping in to the water on its own and happy to do it, but the wind machines (ritter fans) were probably never mentioned to the trainers ahead of time, and all that wind, probably caused the dog to balk. You can see in the video how the trainer was trying to ease the dog in but he accepted the dogs repeated refusals and pulled him back up.
All of this is speculation. I'm just guessing based on my knowledge of the business and my personal working relationship with these trainers. Tell you what… I'll call them and ask. I've got a job going with the lady trainer in the video next week. A tortoise job!
The animal rights groups are after us. They think any animal that is in captivity, including our tortoises and our dogs and cats, is a slave and would literally be better off dead. That is why the PETA and HSUS shelters have far higher kill ratios than any county shelter. Its their job to ruin people like me, and they are paid to do their job by good people who love animals and want to do the right thing, but don't understand the fight we are in. Its not even a fair fight. The animal rights groups get millions in donations to attack us with, but people like me are busy trying to earn a living and go about my daily business. We are being attacked left and right, but we have no means of defense, other than the majority of people understanding right from wrong. That is where the underhanded tactics of lying and deceit come in. The animal rights groups, lie, cheat and steal their way to victory after victory, while people like me and the trainers in this video get steamrolled time after time. If people only knew the truth, these groups would end overnight. The public's emotions are easily swayed with a photo and some sad music, but we never get a chance to have our side of the story heard. Politicians with an agenda pass ridiculous law after law and the snowball keeps rolling down hill and gaining size.
If we don't all band together to stop the animal rightists, and get the truth out, we are all going to be very sorry. Go to here to USARK to learn more and fight back: http://usark.org
Haven't interacted w HSUS, but I can corroborate some of the statements about PETA. I know when it comes to their shelters, the policy is kill ASAP. The reasoning being the more live animals in the shelter the less can be brought in. And in their minds, killing a dog with an injection is better than having them on the street. Obviously, in my opinion, this is ridiculous. I've heard of many people who've had a dog escape, find out where it is, and learn that it was euthanized that very day. Look at what Lange Foundation and, on a larger scale, Best Friends is doing in LA. I believe they are pretty close to no euthanizations in Los Angeles. They are doing work in other places too. This next part doesn't necessarily pertain to dogs, since they live in relation to us, but the philosophy does. From what I've seen, there's always going to be a struggle when using animals to make a living. If not downright abuse, like circuses or certain zoos, than in ways harder for audience members to decipher. I'm thinking use of bull hooks, breaking in of horses, tearing away baby apes from their mothers. In private hands, enclosure sizes for large carnivores and apes is usually inadequate. I think one always has to question these things. Love and wishes for wellbeing are one thing and the reality is another. Personally, I think the keeping of turtles deserves more thought than it is usually given. Not that this means we should stop keeping them but it deserves more thought than is currently given. Are we able to give adequate care?, Is mass breeding of common species wise?, Etc... And animal rights activists need to give more thought to their stances, specifically when it comes to dogs and cats. Not having a discussion about whether people are good or bad. Actually don't believe in good or bad people, just people with all of the factors that come with a life. But this doesn't mean we can't see the grey and come up with better ways of behaving. Like, maybe a new rule would be putting a dog in rushing water with no escape until he goes under isn't humane. And euthanizing all of them isn't either...
I wasn't asked , but i'm gonna offer my 2 cents , because I've spent my life raising dogs , living eating and sleeping with them , and I've found they deserve more respect than most people ....... not directed at you Tom , I don't know you , and you very well may be an outstanding dog trainer , but I've known more "dog trainers" in my life than I could ever remember , and I've seen first hand it doesn't take much to be called a "dog trainer" not even a "master dog trainer" ......... as far as this guy , and I don't know him , but to scare the pyss out of that dog for a buck is not something i'd stand by and watch ........... peta , hsus , needs videos like that more than they need money ......... I know some positive only trainers would teach that dog to jump in that water and enjoy it , i'm not a believer in positive only training , but when it comes to tricks there is no place for anything but positive only ........ I was raised by a dogfighter , I've bred dogs most of my life , been a reptile hobbyist , bird keeper , fish hobbyist , i'm not against folks breeding , keeping or selling animals, i'm against folks that are going to make it harder for me to do what I've done ,and thus far it's been animal owners that have been the largest contributors towards that ....... peta and hsus don't need that much money to argue their point with all the obscenely inhumane treatment a lot of folks put animals through ...... as kevingg said , we need to do better ............ until I see a video of that "trainer" having that dog voluntarily jump in that water , i'm absolutely recommending to anyone I know to read the book and skip that movie ........
Thank you for your input and opinion!
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Great explanation.
You've come to the conclusion that circuses are cruel because the Animal Rights groups have successfully indoctrinated you into believing that. Much of the video and evidence of "cruelty" was intentionally set up by them. For example, they would throw explosives into the area where the circus people were unloading the elephants, then start the camera right after the smoke cleared from the boom, and then film the circus hands being "cruel" while trying to control the now panicked elephants. Then they ask for a donation to stop this "cruelty" and people give. They give generously for the poor elephants.
Bull hooks are in no way cruel. Do you know how thick an elephant's skin is? Ever given an injection to one? I have. It ain't easy.
Breaking horses? It might cause some temporary stress, but in the end it helps them.
All the baby apes I raised were left sitting on the cold concrete by their mothers. No tearing away here. We saved those babies.
It is these sorts of misconceptions that we all need to combat. Real cruelty should not ever be tolerated. But everyone should realize the the animal rights groups, and their media friends that support them are all a pack of liars in league with each other to push their shared political agenda. A large percentage of the lawmakers share their views too. We are in deep trouble.
I'm just now seeing the vid on the news. Not sure how much they didn't show, but I can say I don't think it's right what I did see. An animal should not be forced to do something it obviously is scared to do. The filming should have been stopped and the dog trainer should not have done what they did. The fear in that dogs face and body language is not right. More training, better training or just a break for the day or maybe a different dog would have been the right thing to do!!! Animals first, people's jobs, movie shot, whatever, should be second. I don't agree that all animal rights activists are wrong. Because of some, whomever it may have been, animals are not getting abused like they used to for Hollywood!
I can't speak to your experiences. I suppose the rest of my post was irrelevant.
If bull hooks were painless, they wouldnt work. Thickness of skin is irrelevant. Similar to how a tortoise can feel through the shell. Im guessing an elephants first layers of skin have nerve cells. If I'm wrong, please correct me.
I'm not a supporter of PETA and somehow you gathered that my post was only from videos I've seen by them. This is the equivalent to the rationale that all opponents of Sea World gathered their information solely from "Blackfish". PETA is known to fabricate videos, but all videos depicting animal abuse at the hands of trainers are not fabricated.
Training elephants and horses to do things their bodies wouldn't normally do often requires the tying of limbs and many times beating into submission. Perhaps the horses you're speaking of weren't being broken for show. Regardless, I've seen the aggressiveness of a typical breaking in and I've seen more humane techniques. Thinking specifically about Monty Roberts and Buck Brannaman. Again, I can't speak to how you have seen it done. I'd say that any period of undue stress is inhumane.
Back to elephants, circus elephants do hundreds of shows a year. Throughout that time, they are kept in cramped quarters while waiting to perform and during transport. I'd say that is all inhumane. No need for video.
Again, I can't speak to the apes you raised or the care the mothers were in before they "left them on the concrete". I do know that occasionally apes abandon their young. This is not behavior across the board. If in your experience it was, I'd think their was a problem with how the adults were cared for. I know many zoos and private institutions are wholly inadequate. I'd cite Jane Goodall here, perhaps the foremost authority on chimpanzees.
My previous post was mostly about questioning easy answers to tough questions. Animals being kept in captivity will always and forever be paired with tough questions. Perhaps we should spend some time pondering them.
I just watched the video. I don't know if there was more video after they cut out or not. My opinion is that they should have taken a break. Given the dog A chance to regroup. The dog was definitely thinking about jumping in a couple times but then it was very scared and I don't like the fact that they just threw it in. Stupid question for Tom, but on a movie set are they able to do a dress rehearsal type thing? For instance have that water running like it was and have the dog jump in a couple times. Because you can do all the training in the world at home but you can't exactly simulate the scene on set.
The books were good but I probably won't watch the movie because I would be disappointed. They could never make the movie as good as the book.
The books were good but I probably won't watch the movie because I would be disappointed. They could never make the movie as good as the book.
possibly there is a fuller version out there than what i saw , in the videos i have seen , at no point did that dog think about jumping in ........ it started out with the guy restraining a scared dog , it was all but over at that point , trying to force a scared dog to do anything is counter productive , you actually make the dog unteachable to anything at that time , except maybe biting ..... dealing with a scared dog , the guy obviously didn't know how , he may have been pressured to get the dog to do it , but what he was doing was never going to work , he should have just thrown him in and gotten it over with , it would have been less harmful to the dog ..........with all the bad publicity they got over it , they need to put out a video of the dog willingly doing it , my belief is they'll need to use a different dog , getting dragged underwater in the end i'm sure that dog will remember for awhile ......... ..............
I don't think the dog should have been forced to do that. He clearly did not want to at all. He was so scared and that point I would have just stopped right then and there and tried at another time. I'm not a dog trainer but I have trained my dogs on my own with the guidance of others and forcing them to do something they don't want, you have to have patience. You teach the dog with positive reinforcement until they do it on their own. When I first got a dog on my own I made mistakes that took me a long time to correct. For example, I wanted a dog that could swim with me. What did I do? I put my dog in the pool thinking she would get used to it and nope she was scared, didn't ever want to go near water. Next time I brought her around water she remembered what happened and ran the other way. So I kept thinking how I could get her in water without terrifying her? Use some sort of positive reinforcement. I knew she loved tennis balls. So I would sit at the stairs of the pool and drop the ball at the first step. At first she she didn't want to get near the water but eventually she wanted that ball so bad that after a few tries she stretched and grabbed the ball. Eventually after many more tries she put her foot on the first step. Then after that slowly deeper and deeper and eventually I got to the point where I threw the ball halfway in the pool and she ran and used the steps and swam in her own and now she likes it. You can get dogs to do so many things that they were once scared of if you do it the right way. Am I screaming animal abuse at these people? No, BUT I think they should have approached it a different way and should have known better being they are dog trainers.
Ok all you arm chair quarter backs… Here's the real story from someone who was there. Because this is now a delicate and possibly legal matter, I have to choose my words carefully.
First of all a representative of the American Humane Association was present and oversaw all of this action, as well as all the other dog work for each shoot day of the entire movie. They reported nothing "inhumane" and certainly no animal cruelty. They watched this happen, and they assessed it in context with all that happened before and after.
Second, I don't know who recorded this video, but you can hear the relaxed and playful tone. This was not a day where something horrible was going down right in from of their eyes. They were bantering back and forth about it. This is because prior to what is shown in this video, and after what is shown in this short video, the dog was happily playing in the water, and NOT being "forced" to "work" or do anything else that would make it unhappy. In fact, this dog loves the water and swimming, and it loves working with and playing with its trainers.
Next, at the left end of that pool were the steps that the dog and trainer had been using to enter this pool during the coarse of prep and several times on this day. They had already filmed 6-7 takes before this video was taken, and all went perfect. The dog was happy to enter the water and retrieve its toy. After successfully getting all these other takes the director asked if the trainers could release the dog from the area on the platform that is seen in the video, and call the dog so it would now swim diagonally across the pool. Trainers said they would give it a try, and that is the video you see. The dog didn't want to enter from there, the trainer tried to ease him in a couple of times and when the dog refused, you can see the trainer look up and shrug as if to say "Sorry. This isn't going to work…" just as the video cuts. It didn't work, so they went back to entering the water at the familiar steps and everyone, including the dog, was happy again.
Here again, as we have seen with so many other thing like this, the video is edited to only give the appearance of wrongdoing, when in fact no wrongdoing occurred. If the video showed all that happened before and after what is shown, this whole thing would be a non-issue. We, the viewing public are again being manipulated into feeling how "they" want us to feel.
I have personally trained many dogs to swim, and most of them wanted no part of it when we started. All of them now happily play and swim. The dog in the video is one of those dogs that has always loved the water and enjoys swimming and playing in it. The people who edited and are promoting this video have an agenda. Please don't fall for it.
First of all a representative of the American Humane Association was present and oversaw all of this action, as well as all the other dog work for each shoot day of the entire movie. They reported nothing "inhumane" and certainly no animal cruelty. They watched this happen, and they assessed it in context with all that happened before and after.
Second, I don't know who recorded this video, but you can hear the relaxed and playful tone. This was not a day where something horrible was going down right in from of their eyes. They were bantering back and forth about it. This is because prior to what is shown in this video, and after what is shown in this short video, the dog was happily playing in the water, and NOT being "forced" to "work" or do anything else that would make it unhappy. In fact, this dog loves the water and swimming, and it loves working with and playing with its trainers.
Next, at the left end of that pool were the steps that the dog and trainer had been using to enter this pool during the coarse of prep and several times on this day. They had already filmed 6-7 takes before this video was taken, and all went perfect. The dog was happy to enter the water and retrieve its toy. After successfully getting all these other takes the director asked if the trainers could release the dog from the area on the platform that is seen in the video, and call the dog so it would now swim diagonally across the pool. Trainers said they would give it a try, and that is the video you see. The dog didn't want to enter from there, the trainer tried to ease him in a couple of times and when the dog refused, you can see the trainer look up and shrug as if to say "Sorry. This isn't going to work…" just as the video cuts. It didn't work, so they went back to entering the water at the familiar steps and everyone, including the dog, was happy again.
Here again, as we have seen with so many other thing like this, the video is edited to only give the appearance of wrongdoing, when in fact no wrongdoing occurred. If the video showed all that happened before and after what is shown, this whole thing would be a non-issue. We, the viewing public are again being manipulated into feeling how "they" want us to feel.
I have personally trained many dogs to swim, and most of them wanted no part of it when we started. All of them now happily play and swim. The dog in the video is one of those dogs that has always loved the water and enjoys swimming and playing in it. The people who edited and are promoting this video have an agenda. Please don't fall for it.
The dogs wasn't forced to do that. They tried to get him to go in that way a couple of times and then they accepted his refusal and went back over to entering from the stairs on the other end.
This video of a few seconds duration has led you (and thousands of other people…) to incorrect conclusions about how much time was spent training this dog and what methods were used.
Killerrookie
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I see the cut where it was edited. This entire video was cut up at times. Tom IS proving a point on a lot of things here. I take his word and I clearly see this has been edited a bit. Doubt they threw the dog into the water.. You can see at that moment it was cut to the dog in the water.
My posts weren't really specific to this incident. More an observation of the business. I think I spoke to a lot of the things you brought up again.
Specifically to this incident, was the dog going under scripted? It seems like the trainer knew the dog was in a risky situation by the way she yelled, "Stop" and rushed over.
Truthfully, I think people always have an agenda with their opinions. Mostly because what one is reacting to isn't solely the isolated event, but the sum of their experiences. So the people outraged by this video are probably outraged because animal abuse continues to happen, specifically in this industry. I disagree with your opinion that it is all propaganda. Of course some is, but that isn't justification for the complaints to be discarded.
I can really feel for your friends. I'm sure they are receiving awful letters and maybe even death threats. People will always find identity in things that they do. Your friends being awful people would be further proof that the animal activists are virtuous. I'd urge both sides away from this temptation and toward contemplation. One reason this forum is so cool is that it gives everybody the opportunity to see humans and not monoliths that conform to our insecurities.
