The Art of Dogs @artofdogs-blog - Tumblr Blog

fordtough

ofcarnivora

Please do not remove my caption 😕

running-dog

Zhava and Phoenix playing with each other at speed. Princess love.

recoveredyankee

The sun will rise and I will try again

spanishmal

brynnecarra-photography

My little poser <3

handsomedogs

Floey :by Martyna Ożóg

facebook | instagram | flickr

duncanthebulldog

I can eat these, right?

bargain-bin-beasts

blep

ihavelotsofdogs-deactivated2013

slurpee-blu-deactivated20160501

so many pretty beezers on my dash tonight

qualitydogs

Australian Cattle Dog by Anda Stavri

fleetwindsaluki

Puzzle and Chess - Siblings

yowulf

This HAS to go viral. This pathetic movie is abusing animals in order to film cheap scenes for human entertainment. The dog is clearly terrified but the “trainers” have no regard for her safety.

Please share and encourage your friends not to spend money on a movie that uses animal abuse to film!!!

http://www.tmz.com/2017/01/18/a-dogs-purpose-german-shepherd-abuse-video/

hillyosaurus

Hi yes, ACTUAL dog trainer and dog behaviorist here. Sorry to interrupt your pitchforks and torches fest but this article is extremely misleading and is presented as a shock factor rather then presenting an actual, studied opinion of the video.

If you watch the clip, which I did, there is a lot of subtle stuff going on. First of all, rushing water is scary to ANY sort of animal, let alone a German Shepard who isn’t really a water dog like a Lab. You can see how the trainer is constantly touching the dog gently on the side and loin. He is reassuring the animal while keeping a snug grip on the collar. (Which is a flat collar btw so it can’t really do any damage to the dog even with him holding it) He is also down on the animals level, not hovering above the dog. And if you look closely, you can see that this man is constantly talking to the dog, obviously reassuring the animal. Furthermore, this is a movie dog, they have dealt with all sorts of scary situations before. This is probably the very first time that this animal was introduced to this situation and I bet you money that if we saw more of the clip, you would see them repeat this process slowly and gently until the animal relaxed.

Finally, you see the animal try to pull away. Again, perfectly normal for an animal that is scared, but again, you see the trainer pull the dog back (not yank it sharply back or drag it back) and then place the dog in the water. The actual time in the water is extremely brief and you can see that the trainer doesn’t let go of the dog and immediately pulls the animal out again after a few seconds. Just like putting a child in the bath tub for a little bit, the trainer is establishing that the water won’t harm the dog and kept the training session brief. Convenient that the clip stops before it shows you the trainer rewarding the animal in some way, which I can guarantee you they did.

Finally, I will leave you with two things. One, if the dog was actually being abused it would be responding by trying to snap at the person holding the collar and the body language would be pure terror with the tail language and hackles. German Shepards are not scared to tell you when they don’t want to do something and this dog is no different. Two, there are so many laws and regulations in place to stop the abuse of animals in movies. There is ALWAYS a representative of these organizations on site during filming whenever there is any sort of animal involved.

Don’t spread misinformation and misunderstanding please. Just like your mom forced you to eat your veggies when you were young, sometimes working with animals means encouraging them to go into situations that is way outside their instincts.

peduncling-away-deactivated2019

This is not training. This is flooding. The dog is actively trying to disengage from the situation: a clear sign of stress. It’s hard to see from a distance but you see several tongue flicks and the dog is clawing and scrambling on the ground to get away from the water. This is a flight reaction that is born from fear. Just because he’s not biting or snapping doesn’t mean he’s not fearful. German Shepherds can be snappy but saying the animal isn’t stressed when he’s showing multiple signs of a very panicked flight response is just being willfully ignorant.

I’ve seen this behaviour countless times when working at the kennels. And it’s a sign that the animal is completely shutting down. At this point, they don’t accept food since fight or flight has long since kicked in and they basically just freeze up. They also are not able to learn in this state either, due to the high amounts cortisol and adrenaline in the system. The only way you could reinforce this is by taking the dog away from the situation and the aversive stimuli (the water).

In the case of dogs at kennels, we have to basically pick them up or drag them out of sheer necessity to get them into their kennel for their own safety. In this case, there is no necessity. They could have easily desensitised the dog without the white water rapids and used rapid fire shots or CGI to create the right effect.

If you’re working with animals, you should only be putting them in potentially stressful situations for a valid reason. The comparison of your mum getting you to eat your veggies is invalid - a child understands why they need to eat their vegetables and they learn that they’re good for them and can even be tasty.

Dogs don’t understand why they have to be put in stressful situations and you can’t explain it to them. Getting a shot for a movie is not a valid or healthy reason to put an animal under stress. And you can see that the environment is clearly unsafe and hasn’t been thought through since the dog goes under the water by the sheer force of the rapids.

This is terrible animal training. This is nothing but flooding an animal with an aversive stimuli and forcing them into a dangerous and stressful situation for literally no valid reason.

maisietheyellowlab

yes, this!^

securityunit-ese

Thank you @mooseings for that nice rebuttal to the complete and utter bullshit above.

This is NOT a worried dog being dragged in for it’s annual shots, it’s a terrified dog being repeatedly dunked into the water by its neck for a trivial film clip. This is not appropriate handling or training.

@why-animals-do-the-thing