Lets start at the very beginning…My story as an animal trainer starts back in 1987. I had moved to Florida from my native England and wanted to train dolphins. In a nutshell that’s what I did. I started at Ocean World (a now defunct 60’s era marine life park) as an assistant/trainee/fish cutter/apprentice…Luckily Ocean World was one of the few marine life parks that still trained on the job, I loved every second of it. I stayed for about three years and then left to drive cross country to Hollywood, California to become a studio animal trainer.
In 1994 I started working at Studio Animal Services. Based approximately 45 minutes north of Hollywood it provides the industry with animals of all shapes and sizes for any production, whether it be a movie, a print campaign, commercial or television show. I have been working as a trainer in the studios now for close to 19 years.
Training animals for studio work involves a lot of creativity, patience and dedication. Of course, a strong love for animals is a must. No day is the same, every day brings new challenges and along with that a varied and somewhat erratic work schedule, which is part of the reason I like it. Variety is the spice of life!
What works for one dog as far as training, may not work for another. And sometimes you only have a day or two to train something. Aside from dogs, I have trained lots of different animals, there have been squirrels, rats, ducks, cats, mice, goats, chickens, pigeons and wrangled everything from snakes to cockroaches and flies! Nothing exotic though, no bears or lions. I’d prefer not to be responsible for someone’s life!
Telling you how I started in the animal training world wouldn’t be complete without briefly telling you about Beans. Beans was the first dog I trained for studio work. I found her in a local shelter when she was approximately six months old. Beans was an exceptional dog and I’d like to say I knew what I was doing when I plucked her from death row, but at that stage it was more like dumb luck. She did like tennis balls. I knew enough to know this was a good sign. Beans made me look good as a trainer – she picked things up quickly, was very adaptable to many different scenarios and was pretty fearless. She would try anything and was specifically requested for many jobs over the 12-14 years she was in this business. Sadly she passed away around 15 1/2 years old – a fantastic dog who will never be forgotten.
Over the years I have been asked by actors, directors, producers etc., to train their dogs. It’s a nice balance – being able to step away from training a squirrel to retrieve something to getting back to the good old basics of puppy training. Puppy training has to be on the top of my list as my favorite project. They are so receptive and willing to learn (for the most part) their minds are like little sponges, waiting to soak up all this new information – teaching them the good stuff is by far a better way to go than trying to retrain later and break bad habits.
In this blog I will be sharing lots of information. There will be quite a few posts based on training, some fun post from my days on movie and television sets in Hollywood. Along with that I would like to share places that I come across in my travels that are pet friendly – from hotels to restaurants, parks and vacation spots.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions about your pets, ideas for posts and any places that you have visited that are pet friendly that you would like to share and we will get the word out!
