If you took our Animal Acting seminar, you are familiar with the wide variety of skills dogs need to be successful while on the job as an actor or model. Occasionally, jobs require a specific, complex skill. I thought it would be fun to dive into what that looks like, using Lemon’s recent role as Steve in Netflix’s The Beast In Me as an example. For this job she needed to learn how to bark on command. This is how we took the cute trick and turned it into a well generalized and proofed training behavior, robust enough for paid work!
The casting call was for a white Miniature Poodle that could bark on command. Lemon is white, and half Poodle. I knew she could learn to bark, so I sent her in with a note about her still needing to learn to bark. Over the next several weeks, we sent in audition videos of Lemon barking on cue in progressively more difficult scenarios. Pretty quickly, I also pitched Coaster for the role since she is small and curly (both Poodle qualities), and barking is her specialty in life.
Before auditioning in person, both dogs practiced barking on command, barking continuously on command, barking at a distance, barking with their feet up on an object, and barking at a window. When we think about proofing behaviors using the three D’s (Distance, Duration and Distraction), that list covers all of them. Duration and distance are easy to conceptualize. Understanding the paws up behavior is a multi-tasking distraction, and that the window pane is a spatial pressure distraction, is a little bit more abstract.
A compilation of their audition videos is below. As always, training complex skills is a great way to get to know your dog. Each dog excelled and struggled with the task in different ways.
Coaster was not phased by barking in different positions, with her paws up, or near other objects. She was less thrilled about working at a far distance from me. Lemon didn’t mind working away from me, but she was very aware of environmental changes. In the video with her paws up on a log at the park, for example, she accidentally moves and steps on a pine cone which temporarily throws her off. Generalizing the command was key for her.
Audition Videos
Coaster and Lemon both made the short list, and auditioned in person for the role, and Lemon was the lucky dog to book the gig.
There were two scenes in particular that our agent made us aware of so that we could prepare before filming. The first was a scene where the dog is barking at something out of the window, and the dog’s owner walks to the window to see what they are barking at. The second was a scene where there are dogs barking at each other through a window.
Both presented some interesting training challenges that I was glad we had some time to work through before we got to set.
1) Get Lemon to send to a glass door with no target on the ground.
2) Get Lemon to work for a different trainer to start barking initially before sending to the door.
3) Get Lemon to switch focus from the original trainer back to myself once she was at the door.
4) Get Lemon to take a barking cue from me while I was on the other side of a glass barrier.
5) Get Lemon to continue barking even if an actor walked up to stand next to her.
6) Get Lemon to keep working while other dogs are also barking at her.
7) Get Lemon to bark and send to place with only hand signals.
You never quite know what the set or the scene will end up looking like, so it is important to teach your dog to perform the behavior with flexibility. Being able to break down the scene into intermediate steps, and anticipate where the dog might need extra support is essential for setting the dog up for success. The pressure is real when you are on set, and a whole cast and crew are depending on your dog’s training to hold up.
In the video below you can watch Lemon’s progress as she tackled those training challenges.
Barking Training Videos
The first clip is of her sending to place and speaking on several different targets, in a distracting location with dog distractions. Luckily, she is already accustomed to working in and among dog, people, and noise distractions. Our regular pet dog and competition training gave her a huge advantage in that respect so we could focus on this singular skill, and not have to worry about all the other distractions that come with training on set.
The second clip shows her barking for a handler then sending to the door (using a floor target) then barking for me, on the other side of the door. You can see that she struggles to decide who she should be taking direction from and looks back and forth between me and Paige several times.
The third clip shows her practicing the same behavior in a new environment. Since there were competing “places” near the door for her to send to, and the door looked different than the fully glass door she had practiced on previously, this location was particularly difficult. It took several repetitions to get her to send to the door and to look out this door for direction.
The fourth and fifth clips are both at the same, new, location. She is doing much better about switching handlers at this point, although she still needs me to prop the door open at first to get her barking. She is also sending to the door reliably without the floor target. The barrier between us ended up being the hardest part of this skill for her.
The last clip shows us adding in a human distraction at the door. Lemon thought was easy!
In the end, neither scene was shot in the way we had practiced them, but the skills we perfected during the training process were very much needed throughout filming. Naturally, I love training dogs, and solving training problems (such is the life of a dog trainer). Creating a training plan for these skills and working Lemon through them was a fun project, and I am so thankful we had the opportunity to participate.
