Blog Tag: Animal Training
Planning on flying with your pet for that family vacation? Find us at City Farm and get the best animal training tips that will save you the hassle.
Planning on flying with your pet for that family vacation? Find us at City Farm and get the best animal training tips that will save you the hassle.
I was extremely fortunate to be invited by Studio Animal Services to train the puppies again for the 2015 Budweiser Super Bowl commercial. We trained the puppies for about three weeks, they were approximately 8 weeks old when we started, and then in the middle of December we headed up to central California to shoot the commercial on location.
Once again (and as always in past commercials) the amazing team of Budweiser Clydesdales were involved and being trained by Robin and Kate Wiltshire of Turtle Ranch in Wyoming, assisted by the ever present Budweiser ‘handlers’ – a team of great guys who make sure these horses want for nothing – who also assist Robin in the training.
I tried to take as many photos as I could, but my days were slammed with 8-10 hours of puppy training, 7 days a week right up until the shoot. Luckily we had many people around who took some great photos as you can see in this post.
We had 8 puppies – all of which were trained to do various things that were needed for the commercial. I was joined again by best friend and fellow trainer at SAS Deborah Dellosso – there’s nothing we enjoy more than training puppies!!
In the spirit of pumpkin patches, hay rides and Halloween costumes, we’re celebrating here at the farm.
Halloween, being one of our favorite holidays, is a time to enjoy sweets, like our bubblegum, bob for apples and yes, even dress up the horses. The best thing is… they love it! Meet Peanut, Chiquita and Chocolate, even at their young ages, they’ve had their fair share of costumes. From the time I first brought them home in my minivan, they’ve had a hat, sash, or cape on a few times a year. Of course I would never push them to do dress up so the fact that they’re willing to trade an apple for a witch hat adds to the festivities!
This year, we carved our pumpkin patch at night to really let our jack-o’-lanterns glow! Everyone was in costume and excited for the fun. Chiquita struts by Chocolate’s stall each night since she’s arrived so we knew they had to dress up together. In true Chiquita fashion she started to nibble at Chocolate’s hair piece just to get his attention. My life on the farm brings me many pleasures but few compare to the happiness my horses bring. It was a wonderful start to the holiday season and the horses are just another reason I will be extra thankful come Thanksgiving.
What is your favorite way to include your pets at the holidays? Are they as happy as our minis and dwarves to join in the fun? Enjoy more snapshots of our life at The City Farm below… stay tuned for more!
This time last year, I was working on the movie Godzilla on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. I spent the whole summer on the island and had a magnificent time. In the past I had visited and worked in Hawaii many times, each time the wheels would turn in my head and I would ask my self how I could manage to live here. It never occurred to me that I could do my regular job here (training animals for movies and television) even though Hawaii does get its fair share of films.
Here I am, on the set of Godzilla.
The pigs were in a very small part, but unfortunately cut out of the movie.
Some work acquaintances (now, very good friends) who worked on Godzilla suggested I move here and start my own company. At first I kind of just chuckled to myself and walked away at that suggestion – but it kept nagging at me. I gave it a lot of thought and decided that I needed a bit of a change in my life, so I did it! A year later here I am living in Oahu.
I was very lucky to get another movie to work on right when I moved here, so that was a huge bonus. I continue to go back and forth to Los Angeles, I am still very involved with my pet line here at The City Farm. And I still love doing all their photography for the website. So its a win/win for me. I love it here, I feel like its my home and my dog was just shipped out so it feels especially like home now.
My local beach is a 7 minute walk and the best part is you are allowed to take dogs on the beach! I cannot tell you how amazing that is! Its just wonderful. I go nearly every morning and walk Jesse (I am taking care of him while his parents are out of town) and my dog Dennis Hopper. I feel very fortunate.
Jesse and Dennis Hopper on the beach in Oahu
Not only am I still doing studio training here in Hawaii, I am also branching out to offer some local pet services, like dog sitting and also helping people get their pets here to the islands from the mainland. I will be writing a post about that shortly – it seems like a very daunting process, but with planning your dog never has to set foot in quarantine in order to live on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific!!
The Budweiser commercial “Puppy Love” was just nominated for an Emmy! So proud to have been the puppy trainer on this spot. Fingers crossed to director Jake Scott, production company RSA and ad agency Anomaly – it HAS to win!!
Normally in the winter we get some relief from the dry, desert conditions here in southern California, but this year it seems we missed out. With the temperatures continuing to be above average take a second to think about all of our beautiful backyard birds that would not only love to have a sip of cool water – but maybe take a bath here and there.
I have always set up bird baths in my gardens. Not only is this welcomed by the local bird population, it provides me with some entertainment from the regular visitors and from the occasional passerby.
You will find that once you put a birdbath out – word gets around pretty quickly. And soon you will have all kinds of birds dropping in.
I usually dump the water late afternoon and replace with fresh cool water for those that stop by before dark. I also put a mister out on extremely hot days and you will find that hummingbirds will especially enjoy this treat – as will the occasional dragonfly.
Over the years I have had quite a few wild bird encounters, there was the screech owl that flew into my car late one night on a mountain road just above Los Angeles. I stopped went back (because the thud sounded like a small animal not a small bird) and there was the owl laying on his back dazed and confused! I scooped him up in a towel, kept him wrapped up – and once I got home I placed him in a wire dog crate. I left him wrapped up as I was sure he was in shock and that lowers their body temperature, so I thought he could just be swaddled for the night. I left a perch in the cage with some wet canned dog food and water. The next morning he was sitting on the perch with dog food all over his face! He (or as I later found out “she”) went off to rehab at the raptor center in Ventura. About 6 weeks later they called me…”your owl is ready for release”. So I picked up the owl in a cardboard pet carrier, and that night my friend and I drove up the mountain to the scene of the crime and we released the beautiful owl into the night sky.
Driving to shoot a commercial one day – I was following a line of vehicles into the location on a dusty, dirt road out in Thousand Oaks. On the road in front of me was a bird – spreadeagled – wings out to the side, face down in the dirt. I stopped, jumped out, picked him up and put him in an extra crate I had in my SUV. Amazed no one had run over him, we headed to the base camp for the shoot and went to craft services to find some sugar and water. I kept him in a cool spot all day and regularly dropped sugar water into his mouth.
He was beyond dazed, in fact I took him home and kept him in a wire dog crate for over a week, hand feeding him through the door. This one was a woodpecker. He ate and drank from me for as long as his little brain was addled and prevented him from being scared of me. Slowly, weeks later he came around and started to become more and more flighty. By this time I had sectioned off a portion of my garden shed and he had his own birdhouse, complete with bark stapled to the wall. He lived with me for about 3 months until I felt he was well and truly recovered – then one day I opened the door and let him fly off.
The hummingbird that could not stand 115 degree heat for days on end several summers ago, crashed into my neighbors fence and lay on the floor – he ended up spending a couple of hours in a shoebox, another recipient of sugar water. As I held him in my hand and held a dropper to his beak, I could literally feel him refueling. His body came back to life and he was invigorated by the much needed sugar rush. Once it cooled down, right before dusk I hand released him into my back garden – another success story!
I feel like I have pretty good bird karma.
So go get some birdbaths – add a small water pump to make it even more enticing and enjoy the benefits of the sound of a fountain – hang up some hummingbird feeders and maybe, in the late afternoon on really hot days, hang a mister from your porch or under a tree – and watch the birds flock to your sanctuary!
As most of you know I train animals for the studios. Well one of the most rewarding jobs I have done in a long time has been working on the new Budweiser commercial featuring the Clydesdales and a Budweiser puppies! …8 puppies. We trained 8 puppies to play the part of one puppy in this fabulous new commercial directed by Jake Scott. Check out this link for a quick tease behind the scenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mXTklvnGYo&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6mXTklvnGYo
This is Red. Red is a beautiful Afghan hound, and we used him on the movie Titanic.
There were animals on Titanic I hear you say? Why yes, there was! We actually had the same breeds of dogs that were checked onto the ship along with their human owners, the four dogs we supplied for the production were the Afghan, a French bulldog, a wirehaired terrier and an Airedale.
Gentle Jungle supplied all the animals and they also provided a slew of horses for the opening scene where all the people were boarding the ship, being pulled up in horse drawn carriages. There were also had a few stray dogs, milling around the dock.
It was a fun shoot – mainly because we were in Mexico, it was my first BIG movie to work on and being on a slightly scaled down version of the Titanic was incredible! We would stay up until 4am in the morning to watch the night shoots (when we weren’t working) especially when they tilted the ship into the “sinking” position and the stunt people were jumping off – quite spectacular.
This is me on set waiting to work with our dear little wire hair fox terrier, she was a sweetheart.
And below – I am in wardrobe with the two “stray dogs” that we let loose to run around the dock while all the passengers were boarding. I was in wardrobe to keep a close eye on them.
Dog Day Afternoon…What a perfect way to spend an afternoon sorting through the hundreds of dog pictures I have taken over the years. These will be regular posts giving you a chance to meet these wonderful dogs. Some have long since passed, some are new into my life and have many more photo shoots left in them.
This cute little long haired dachshund was called Oscar and he had a brother called Mayer. They were trained movie dogs and belonged to Studio Animal Services where they were trained and went on many jobs for TV shows and commercials.
A few years back I trained a slew of ducks for a movie – appropriately titled DUCK – www.duckthemovie.com
I like training ducks. They are fun and different from your average day of dog training. We have about twelve of them and they all have different personalities and funny little quirks and behaviors. The reason we have so many is because we work and train the ducks for their daily food. As you can imagine, that is not much food, consider the size of a ducks stomach! So when a duck becomes full, we move onto the next one!
The other reason for twelve ducks is because they all bring something different to that table (is that a bad food joke? NO!). One duck may be great with the actor and loves to be held in someones arms, while another runs really fast. Trying to make a slow duck run fast is pointless, just take the fastest of the bunch and use that one.
At the beginning of each job I “audition” the ducks for their new jobs – actions – that they may be required to do. Sometimes we have a limited amount of time in which to train. So for example, using the more “aggressive” duck, the one that always bites you and grabs at things, to train for scenes that require the duck to pull on something, is much easier than trying to coax a more quiet, less aggressive duck into doing it. And therefore using the quieter duck for scenes with the actor is better than using the “grabby” duck, who may decide he suddenly wants to bite the actors nose!
And let me tell you – getting bitten or more realistically “pinched” by a duck, hurts! And leaves a bruise!
When you have my job, you can find yourself in the most interesting places. For the TV show Heroes we needed to place a cat on a rooftop for a quick shot. As you can see by the above picture, getting to the rooftop in an alleyway was no easy feat. Strapped into this contraption was a little nerve wrecking, but you have to put your faith in the professionals you work alongside and trust they know what they are doing. It was a little wobbly at its fully extended height I have to say. Luckily we had an awesome laid back cat called Baxter that we used for this shot. Nothing fazes him and he pulled this off with no problem. Definitely not your average day at the office!
The picture below is of Chrissie (in the green shirt) my fellow cat trainer. I took this from my position, she was helping place the cat on the roof. Notice she is strapped in for safety also.
And sometimes you find yourself working in Hawaii for five weeks…
For many years Studio Animal Services supplied the cows for the numerous and humorous California Cheese commercials. They were always fun jobs. We nearly always shot up in central California around the area of Petaluma. There’s a slightly better chance of green-er grass up there compared to down here where it tends to be dry and crispy!
We would truck up there in convoy, horse trailers full of cows and horses and sometimes we had adorable calfs for a few of the spots.
A lot of the times the cows just had to stand there. sometimes they had to run and sometimes…they stood on my foot! Not advisable by the way. It bloody hurts!
How to make a cow run. Have a bucket of grain. Look silly while running. Don’t fall over. Don’t be the slowest runner, always be in front of the guy with the grain. Ha!