Joel, thanks for coming on here and sharing your expertise!
I always thought it would be really interesting to train animals for movies, etc. I have been training/showing in performance events for about 20 years now and really enjoy finding ways to teach my dogs new behaviors. A couple of my dogs made it on "America's Funniest Home Videos" awhile back (they actually filmed in Alaska one year!) and another of my dogs was in a TV commercial filmed by an Anchorage company. It was more stressful than I had realized it would be - we had to boat over to a small island, wait for everything to be "just right", and then my dog had to sit between a couple of strangers (very close) for a campfire scene, with the smoke and sparks flying around. She was very well behaved and put up with it so well, but I could tell she was tired when we finally went home at 1 a.m.
I do have a question for you. When it comes to dogs, do you find that mixed breeds or purebreds are more popular for movies, commercials, etc? Do you find that certain breeds have a stigma against them (due to beliefs about aggression or some other "bad" reputation) and are unlikely to be used?
I have German shepherds and chows. I'm not trying to get them into any sort of media at this point so my question is purely curiousity. I marketed a training book a number of years ago and had a picture of one of my chows on it and was told that a chow wasn't a good choice because of their reputation. I kind of figured that if my book showed you could train a chow, it should be a plus not a negative! *L*
Melanie and the gang in Alaska