And at this point, Bailey is a senior dog, so … you know what happens next.Īnd then, he's back! Only this time, he's a female German shepherd police dog in the 1980s. That son, Ethan, becomes Bailey's best friend, as the two support each other through growing pains and familial turmoil, including the alcoholism of Ethan's father (Canadian actor Luke Kirby) and a burgeoning romance with schoolmate Hannah (Britt Robertson).Įventually, Ethan moves away for college, leaving Bailey behind. Bailey begins life as a stray red retriever in the 1960s, captured by a pair of ne'er-do-wells and locked in the back of a hot car until he's saved by a kindly mother and her son. A Dog's Purpose flips this script somewhat, in that its entire plot is narrated by the titular canine, Bailey (voiced by Josh Gad). The relationships that we, people, cultivate with our dogs is based on our understanding of and responding to their non-verbal cues they depend on us to read them, because they also depend on us for … well, just about everything else. Put simply, Hercules just can't speak for himself. That's not to say we oughtn't take Polone and Quaid at their respective words – that the animals on the film's set were treated kindly and with care by a team of dedicated trainers and animal-welfare professionals – but rather that without the ability to communicate directly with the movie's four-legged talent, the issue will remain an unresolved case of human-said/human-said. The unsettling undercurrent is that we'll never know how Hercules, the German Shepherd in the TMZ video, or any of the other dogs on the set of A Dog's Purpose felt about their treatment. The film's producer, Gavin Polone, has gone on the defensive, accusing the video of being deliberately misleading, while Quaid said the same in comments to Entertainment Tonight, wondering why someone truly concerned about animal welfare would hesitate to release a tape showing the alleged abuse of a dog on set until a week before the film's release. The video prompted calls for a boycott from PETA, as well as a cancelled press tour by star Dennis Quaid (a scheduled interview with The Globe and Mail was canned the night the video in question was released).
Last week – just days before the film's scheduled release – TMZ published a video of one of the film's performing dogs apparently in distress, as a trainer attempts to push him into rushing water.
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The AHA oversees safety guidelines for animal actors on movie sets, ensuring that no animals are harmed in the process of filming.It is difficult to consider A Dog's Purpose without noting the controversy surrounding it. "We are placing the safety representative who was on the set on administrative leave immediately and are bringing in an independent third party to conduct an investigation into this matter," the organization told TMZ. The American Humane Association told the celebrity gossip site that a representative from the organization who was on set had been suspended after officials saw the video.
"On the day of the shoot, Hercules did not want to perform the stunt portrayed on the tape so the Amblin production team did not proceed with filming that shot." Hours later, producers of the film from Amblin reportedly told TMZ the dog had "several days of rehearsal of the water scenes to ensure (he) was comfortable with all of the stunts." When TMZ first posted and reported about the video, Amblin Partners and Universal Pictures, the companies that created the film, said they would investigate the matter.