Quiet on set! (in praise of verbal cues)

I was perusing some other animal wrangler's sites on the interwebs. One successful group was going on and on about how all their animals are trained using visual cues. This is a useful thing, but it got me thinking. If your dog (or what have you) is having to stare at you the whole time in case you cue a behaviour, they can't look natural in their environment.

Its a big pet peeve of mine. MOST dogs in TV and movies don't look like they belong with the people. They rarely interact with their 'owners' and when they do you can tell its done as fast as they can so they can then watch their real owner out of frame.

I don't see the big deal with verbal cues. With todays technology its not a big deal for a voice cue to be edited out providing you aren't giving it over top of the actor's lines. A dog who is waiting for a verbal cue is then free to make eye contact and interact with the actors and in short look FAR more natural and believable. Also verbal cues allow you to be out of your dog's eyeline. This is handy when you are working on a very tight set, when the dog is positioned where its impossible for you to have eye contact and be out of frame, or if your dog needs to be 'sick and dying' and have their eyes closed (see pic)

Dekka has only done 2 movies at this point. BUT it was a major role both times. She was the 'leading lady' in Off Season and one of the central characters in Road Kill. Both times she was in scenes where she couldn't see me. She was excellent and interacting with the actor in both cases making it very believable that she was his dog.

One scene where I don't know how it could be done without verbal was the 'no eat' scene. Dekka had to lie with her head on the actor's thigh whilst he ate dinner. He reaches forward grabs his plate and settles it on his lap right in front of Dekka's nose. He then proceeds to eat for a bit, the offers a piece of pork to Dekka. She can't take it. She cant' even look happy about the prospect of food. (and let me tell you the little dog is vvvverrry food driven) He then proceeds to try to tempt her with the food in different ways. She has to maintain a sick facade and remain uninterested. On the other hand you want her to look at the actor, the food and not off set. A real dog in that situation would still be engaging with her owner, not staring fixedly at the wall. Right before he would offer her the food the first time I simply said "mine" which is the cue that you are not to take the food offered. A simple one word cue that is easily edited out allowed Dekka to interact with the scene and pull off a believable performance.

So horray for verbal cues. (this is not to say that Dekka does not have hand signals too, she does. Simply that if you go with all hand your dog will not look natural in most scenes)