Detailed Animal Action Report

Throughout the film, the main character has a pet dog, who is seen performing such mild action as sitting/standing/lying, being held or petted, and walking/running on or off leash. For all of these scenes, trainers used hand signals and verbal commands to cue the mild action, which the trained dog was accustomed to performing. The barking/growling was also a trained behavior.

In the scenes when we see the neighbor walk out of his house holding his dog and talking to the other actors, the trainer walked the dog to the set and placed the dog in the actor’s arms. After filming the scene the trainer took the dog back and gave him water. This same sequence was done in the scene when the actors knock on the actor’s door and he’s holding the dog.

In the sequence where the dog licks blood off the carpet floor, while blood drips on the dog, this scene was achieved by shooting it in parts. All of the dogs used are show dogs and are conditioned to being handled, touched and groomed a lot. Production used fake non-toxic blood with detergent added for easier washing. All the dogs had had their hair treated with cholesterol and powder first. This helped the blood from staining. As soon as they cut the scene the dogs were washed in the grooming van outside the set. The dog licked the blood from the floor. Again, the blood was non-toxic and totally fine to eat.  When the actor wipes the blood from the dog’s coat, on action, the actor picked the dog up about a foot and placed her in front of him. He also grabbed a bottle of water and poured it on the dog, avoiding her ears. He continued to wipe her off vigorously with a t-shirt. The t-shirt was very soft and did not bother the dog at all. Everything went well!