Star Potential: What Skills Does Your Dog Need to be an Animal Actor?
Summary: This article explains what skills will give you a better chance of landing jobs in the field of animal acting.
Do you think your dog has what it takes to make it on the big screen? Sure, when potential client agents and their talent agents reach out, they have a definite look in mind, but to really land the great roles and put your dog at the head of the pack, certain socialization, obedience and specialty skills are a must. Just as a human actor must know their lines, your dog actor should also know how to perform what is required of them on set.
Let’s break this down into a few key pieces that will have your dog skyrocketing to the top of the call back list.
Socialization & Desensitization
A set can be a crazy place. You might never know what to expect. Lots of people bustling around, big lights, bright flashes and unexpected noises are all a part of the job. Because of all this, proper socialization and desensitization around these things are a must. Your dog needs to be confident walking into these environments. Happy dogs and safety for all are primary concerns on any acting gig. If your dog gets nervous and can’t perform, or worse yet, acts out in some way towards a member of the cast or crew, you can bet you have just sealed your fate of ever getting hired on a job again!
Sights, Sounds & Novelty Items: Start slowly introducing these things into your daily practices, making sure you associate lots of positive experiences as you add them in. I do things like putting on camera and flash sounds found on YouTube, setting up big umbrella lights in our practice room, etc.
New Environments
You might get called to do a scene in a home, on a beach or walking down a busy street in a big city. Who knows! But it will pay off big to take your dog to many places during your daily training sessions to make sure your dog can perform the tasks asked of them in these different environments. If your dog is only used to working inside buildings and they have no experience working outdoors on less-than-ideal footing, this is going to take your dog out of the running for a lot of jobs.
Obedience Skills
Having strong obedience abilities is the most critical and overlooked part of getting your pet into animal acting. There are several skills that are an imperative part of almost any job your dog might get asked to do, so fine tuning this part of your training will help you leaps and bounds.
Critical Basic Cues: Being strong in obedience across the board is going to be beneficial, but there are definitely a few skills you can hone in on that are asked for on just about any set. A few to start boning up on would be Look, Go to Your Mark, Stay and the basic positions of Sit, Down and Stand.
Distance Work
In any given situation, you will need to make sure your dog is confident doing any of the skills that you have taught him/her from a distance of a good 10 feet away. This is because not only do you have to be out of frame, but there needs to be room for the cameraman, director and whoever else is needed to get the shot.
Silent Cues: In any kind of film work, especially if your dog is working along side a human actor, you must be able to give your cues by visual signals only. Once the sound is rolling, they can’t have the trainer on set talking over the dialogue they are filming or barking cues such as “Sit and Stay” in the background!
Specialty Skills
If your dog is solid in the above-mentioned sections, AND they have a special set of tricks up their sleeve, that could really put them over the top to earning that job. Many times, a client will request a dog that knows a certain trick for a specific gig. For example, your dog must be able to pick up an item, jump up on a bed with it and put their head down as if they are sad or sleepy. There are a lot of behaviors to teach in that one segment. Knowing these skills ahead of time limits the amount of on set training needed to get the scene done. And as they say in show business, time is money!
Luckily, if you really want to try and get into the animal acting biz, there are some great organizations to help you get your foot in the door. The Do More With Your Dog company, which is the trick dog guru of the dog world, has a great program called Animal Actors Internationale. This program allows you to work with Certified Evaluators across the world through online classes to learn different skills beneficial to this field. You can earn badges for different levels of expertise and your dog will even be added to an online database that clients can look at when they are trying to find animals for specific jobs.
So hopefully, this will spark a little excitement to get to training and maybe we’ll see your dog on the big screen next time around!
