Check the gate

Dorito Dogs: Dorito Toss

2012-01-07T22:54:00.000-08:00

For nearly a year I have been thinking about the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest. Its a contest where anyone can make a 31 second commercial (preferably about Doritos if you want SOME chance of winning) you submit it - Doritos picks their 5 favorites and then for nearly the month of January anyone and everyone can vote for their favorite out of those 5. The winner then gets their commercial aired during the Super Bowl, and its then, they have a chance of winning a million dollars.

I am a dog trainer. I have never had any desire to make a commercial, a short film, direct, produce or whatever. But for a year this is all I have thought about. I had the concept clearly in my head. I patiently waited all year for Doritos to announce the contest - which they did the first week in October. Then it was game on. Within a week I had myself a director and within two weeks we had a shoot date, a location and the majority of the crew hired to shoot my commercial on Oct 30th. I ended up with a crew of nearly 30 people that worked tirelessly to make my dream of a year come true.

The deadline was November 21st. We turned the footage over to a friend who edited the footage and was able to come up with three wonderful versions of my concept. About ten days before the deadline we did all the voice overs for the dogs - pulling in some favors from some actor friends who put the icing on this already delicious cupcake!!

I submitted all three spots a couple of days before the deadline. This year Doritos had approximately 6100 submissions, and sadly, I did not make the cut.

People have asked me if am going to do it again. The answer is NO. Lol. This was a one time thing. It was fun, rewarding, and I had an amazing group of people that all rallied together to do this for me. I couldn't ask for more!

Many, many thanks to everyone involved. The below commercial was version two, Dorito Dogs - Dorito Toss (the toss and landing, was a complete fluke by the way, no special effects, no trickery, just a lucky accident.)

I will post the third version and the behind the scenes video. What a day!!

Ford commercial

2011-12-30T13:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a commercial Studio Animal Services shot and I worked on back in April. It was for Ford France and was quite complicated, seeing all the elements that were in place!!

Bob

2011-12-15T20:16:00.000-08:00

This is Bob. Bob is a pigeon. He is two weeks old and I am hand raising him as his Mom decided she didn't want him to live. He actually nearly died about a week ago.

I was training some of our pigeons for a job and noticed that one of my trained flyers had two babies. So I pulled her out of general population and gave her her own space to take care of her babies. Well it got cold, really quickly here in southern California and I went to put them up for the night and the two babies were nearly dead - in fact I thought one was dead. So I took them home, wrapped in a warm towel, with the Mom in a cage and they came back to life.

Except the one I like to refer to as Tera-dactyl was bullying the little guy (Bob) out of his fair share of the yummy regurgitated treats Mom was trying to dish out. So Tera-dactyl grew to an enormous size rather quickly and "Bob" didn't. He was about half the size when I pulled him from the den of death. He now gets fed by me every 3 hours and is doing great. He will be a great working bird - probably the best pigeon to ever work in Hollywood.

Maybe.

Here's the latest from Travelers Insurance!

2011-12-06T20:20:00.000-08:00

Studio Animal Services visited a snowy locale for the shooting of this commercial. Notice Hogan our new bloodhound at the end - making his debut as a studio trained dog!

Sam - makes the cut!!

2011-11-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

A little late for the Chopper look-a-like contest, but worthy of a mention none-the-less. This is Sam!

Sam is a rescued dog from Austin, Texas and is the closest I have seen to a Chopper "double".

Travelers Insurance - Puppy Love

2011-11-07T08:18:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest from Travelers Insurance. We shot this is in San Francisco back in July. Enjoy!

Book Giveaway!

2011-11-07T08:09:00.000-08:00

Visit the wonderful blog Life With Dogs for a chance to win a signed copy of A Famous Dogs Life!

http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2011/11/giveaway-a-famous-dogs-life/

Sprig watches NatGeo

2011-09-16T17:41:00.000-07:00

If you ever want to just keep your Jack Russell in the same spot for more than ten seconds - just put on an animal show. Sprig is especially fond of NatGeo's Animals Say The Wildest Things.

My bathroom is Switzerland

2011-09-14T20:18:00.001-07:00

My French bulldog Tula is probably thinking: "If he grabs my back leg and pulls me across the living room floor ONE more time, I'm gonna go crazy ass on him"...referring to Sprig my Jack Russell.

That is why, in the mornings as I am getting ready for work, I will find Tula scuffling into the bathroom, sidling on by me and putting herself in the corner. In this position she knows that if Sprig should come looking for some leg action I will evict him from the bathroom, saving her from an attack. She is safe in that corner. No one gets by me. Not even cute Sprig - the doer of all that is evil.

Therefore my bathroom is now called Switzerland. Its a no-fly zone. Its neutral territory. No-one gets attacked in Switzerland and Tula knows this.

She's smart. And French. Hmmm.

Chopper lookalike - winner announced!

2011-09-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for sending in your Chopper Lookalike photos. I reviewed all the photos several times over and I have to say that without a doubt ROWDY is the winner. Unfortunately Rowdy passed away in June - but we have video of him below still going strong in his "doggy wheelchair". Thanks to Terry for submitting it - you will be receiving a signed copy of my book A Famous Dog Life.

Here are the rest of the wonderful entries...

Do I have something in my hair?

2011-09-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

Guerneville

2011-09-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

If only all jobs could be like this. A six hour drive from Valencia (northern Los Angeles) you will find Guerneville. A small town in wine country on the Russian River. Myself and another trainer drove up and production had us stay in a great little place called the Dawn Ranch Resort - below you will see the cabins we stayed in. Adorable. We only worked one day, we had an Eurasian Eagle Owl for the shoot, it went well, and the following day we were to drive back. However, we decided to drive back later in the day and take a kayak trip down the Russian River. I had Sprig with me and as you can see below, he had a great time.

Russian River kayak trip

Mark and the Owl

Our shooting location

After a six hour drive we let the owl spread his wings

Dawn Ranch Resort

Sprig

Heyes & Curry

2011-08-23T21:03:00.001-07:00

Introducing Heyes and Curry.

I've posted many pictures on this blog of Smith and Jones - who were named after the TV show Alias smith and Jones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alias_Smith_and_Jones.
Well, in the show Smith and Jones real names were Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry - so I named the new red Labradors Heyes and Curry. Very, very cute.

Today at work

2011-08-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

My work bench. High heels and rawhide chews.

This was my work bench today. Trying to get a Saint Bernard to chew on a shoe. I know everyone thinks that all you have to do is present a shoe to a dog and they should chew it right? Wrong. Why would they? Only naughty dogs who have nothing better to do raid the closet and chew up your footwear. So when we are called upon to have a dog chew on a show we have to come up with some creative ways to entice them. With the two Saint Bernards we were working with, it seems a rawhide chew or bully stick does the trick.

First we started with food. Stuffing chicken in the toe of the shoe, rubbing baby food on the inside. That didn't work - too licky. We don't want shoe licking we want shoe chewing.

We ended up drilling holes into the shoe and zip tied a rawhide chew to the inside of the chew. That seemed to work quite well. One of the dogs Buck liked it immediately. The other dog Molly, got bored with it quickly if she couldn't get the chew out - she we had to place chips of chicken jerky behind the chew that she could get to and "win", this made her happy and kept her going back and looking for more!

Operation chew shoe was successful!

Chopper review

2011-08-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

I have all the submissions for the Chopper look-a-like contest, I am carefully reviewing every submitted photo and video for hair color and head cocks for similarities and will be announcing a winner soon...

Things I saw today.

2011-08-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

The TODAY show appearance

2011-08-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

On August 4th I was lucky enough to be flown to New York City by my publisher, to appear on the Today show to promote my book A Famous Dogs Life! I took Moondoggie with me from the Legally Blonde movies and Echo, a studio trained dog that I used to demonstrate the training of a quick trick you can do at home with your pets.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Calling all "Chopper" lookalikes!

2011-06-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

Chopper who stars in the Travelers Insurance commercials

Okay, so for all of you who claim to have dogs that look just like Chopper - now's your chance to show your dog off! Lets see all these dogs! I will post the photos here on the blog.

So send me one really good photo of your Chopper lookalike and the winner will get a signed copy of my book A Famous Dogs Life.

Send photos to: afamousdogslife@gmail.com

Okay....GO!

Also check out the other posts about Chopper and the Travelers commercial.

http://check-thegate.blogspot.com/2011/03/dog-in-travelers-insurance-commerical.html

http://check-thegate.blogspot.com/2009/06/travelers-insurance-commercial.html

Yummy Baby Bears...

2011-06-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Word soon spread that one of the local animal companies had a couple of baby bears, and one by one all the local trainers made their way over to the ranch to seek out the cuddly bundles of fur.

They are called Thelma and Louise and are as adorable as they look. I happened to stop by one morning on my way to work and thankfully I took a change of clothes, because by the time these two were done climbing all over me I was filthy. Fun filthy, but filthy nonetheless.

Book news

2011-06-17T20:31:00.001-07:00

Good news!! It may not be on the NY bestseller list YET - but A Famous Dogs Life has gone into a second print!!

New Movie...

2011-06-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

Aliester

I've been a little busy of late. I am working on a new movie starring Steve Carell and Kiera Knightly, its called Seeking a Friend for the end of the World. The wonderful director Lorene Scafaria picked Aliester, the little dog pictured above for the role of "Sorry". For this particular job I am working for Sarah Clifford who owns Animal Savvy . We had a couple of weeks to prep for the movie and then started shooting last month, we have about two weeks to go until we wrap.

Its been a really enjoyable job, with an absolutely wonderful crew and two amazing actors - it really does makes a difference when you have a nice director and a great first assistant director.

Anyway! I'm not going to give anything away. But I will be sharing with you some cute photos of our K9 star and adding some images that I found online regarding the film.

Steve Carell and Kiera Knightly with Aliester who plays "Sorry"
credit: Rex Features

Sarah managed to find a really cute dog from the shelter that looks like Aliester - she called him Mulligan. He is Aliesters double and sometimes stand in and on occasion "stunt dog"! I wonder what goes on inside of Mulligans brain - to be in one of the busiest animal shelters in Los Angeles one day and three weeks later working on a film set. Lucky dog!

Aliester relaxing in between scenes

Book Signing for Famous Dogs Life in Venice

2011-05-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

At The Modern Dog on Abbott Kinney in Venice for the book signing of A Famous Dogs Life

What a fabulous evening! I was very lucky to be given the day off from prepping a new movie I will be working on, so I could get ready for the big event. The day started with a massage and then off to the hairdressers and back home to get dressed. I met Deb and we headed down to Venice during a Friday rush hour. As is the case here in Los Angeles, whenever you have to get across town, you better make sure you leave an ungodly amount of drive time as you can never be sure how bad the traffic will be. We had left ourselves an hour and a half - which was a little more than we thought we would need - considering we were going against traffic. So of course, we got down there in record time, about 35 minutes!

Venice Beach used to be our old neighborhood when we both started working at Studio Animal Services, so we decided to do a little drive around and see our old places. Deb was very excited when she saw that the row of cottages she used to live in (2 blocks from the beach) was up for sale. Maybe this would be a good investment - have some rental units under your belt, some extra income. Well that belt would need to be very big! Two and a half million dollars big ,as we learned a little later that weekend when Deb called the realtor!

Okay, so back to the real event. We headed over to Abbott Kinney and to my friends store The Modern Dog. It was around 5:30pm and already the place was packed. The first Friday of every month Abbott Kinney hosts an event called First Fridays (how appropriate) where the stores stay open late and the latest craze here in L.A. the gourmet food trucks, all head in and jockey for the best parking.

Deb and I were lucky to get a parking spot a couple of blocks from the store and we met up with owners Guy and Lance, just as they were talking to Evelyn Taft from CBS about the live broadcast scheduled for later that night.

Deb with friends Russell and Shane on the porch of The Modern Dog

Thinks quickly picked up and before I knew it the next three hours flew by with a constant stream of friends who I had invited to the event. It was weird, almost like they had all conspired to fit different time slots, because as one group of people would leave another would enter the store, making it perfect to meet and greet and catch up with all these wonderful people who said they would show up and actually did!

With my best friend Lauren who stopped by with her husband Jeff

Debs family were the biggest supporters - her Mom and Dad, sister Ilene, her husband Kevin and two children Katherine and Ryan stayed all night just so they could support me during the CBS interview!!

At around 9:45pm we headed down the street and did the interview on the sidewalk - it was only a few seconds, but just enough to plug the book!!

Myself with Evelyn Taft from CBS during a "tease" for our upcoming interview

What a great evening! I had so much fun and other than my shoes killing me by the end of the evening there wasn't a wrong turn all night. Hopefully this is a good sign for the book and we'll sell lots and lots of copies!

Book Signing - A Famous Dogs Life

2011-04-03T17:01:00.000-07:00

Gidget in her own special boat working on a Taco Bell commercial

There will be two book launch parties/signings for A Famous Dogs Life, one in New York City and one in Los Angeles.

Rennie Dyball, my co-author will be heading up the celebrations at the New York party on May 3rd from 6-8pm:

at Trixie & Peanut,
23 East 20th Street, NYC.

I will be living it up at the signing in L.A. on May 6th from 6-9pm at my friends wonderful store:

The Modern Dog
1611 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291

Dogs are welcome at both events - please stop by and support the book A Famous Dogs Life and get a signed copy!!!

Any questions? Email me at: afamousdogslife@gmail.com

Rave reviews for "A Famous Dogs Life"!

2011-03-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

“This is my favorite kind of story: one that proves that with hard work, a great attitude, a lovable personality and large glorious ears, you can accomplish anything.”

Bret Witter, co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Dewey and Dewey’s Nine Lives

“This book is more than just a fascinating look at the tale behind a twelve pound pop-culture icon. Rather, this heartwarming story celebrates the bond between people and their canine best friends. A Famous Dog’s Life is must read for any dog lover.”

Jen Lancaster, New York Times Bestselling Author

“This wonderful book tells the charming story of Gidget, a special little dog. It’ll make you pant with pleasure.”

Rita Mae Brown, New York Times Bestselling Author

Smith! Again.

2011-03-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

This was a commercial I did with Smith at the beginning of the year. It was one of the fun ones. Our first shoot day we had a 5am call time to set and we shot the scene at the lake until the sun came up and then we had the whole day off until the sun was setting! Yup. The entire crew lay around and slept all day, until around 4pm when we went back to work.

The next day we shot up in Big Bear at a beautiful home at a wonderful location surrounded by the snow capped mountains - I like these kind of jobs, and Smith had fun too!