Hollywood Paws offers basic behavior training, and advanced training to respond to cameras. The trainers warn that training is not a sure route to television stardom, but they’re still facing a Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit from a dozen pet-owners complaining of broken dreams. What sort of stardom plaintiffs think they were legally entitled to is uncertain; for example, one of the plaintiffs’ dogs, Goliath the Rottweiler, had a scene on the Tyra Banks Show that was cut, and is now making $100/day on a low-budget movie. (Jessica Garrison, “No Bows, No Wows for Pooches Pursuing Fame”, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 3 (h/t F.R.).)
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Gosh…when I logged on tonight, my usual batch of news blurbs included this story (under “strange news items”). No mention was made of Goliath actually having a scene on Tyra’s show; rather, it was said he was refused entirely. Also, of course, nothing was said about the part in a low budget movie. The reader (me) is led to believe the poor puppie is sittinf there eating cheap kibble rather than the steak he is entitled to.
However, even from that, um…”biased”?? story, I can easily get that these people paid for training as well as what appears to be doggie talent agency. I know that if I take my mutts to get trained, that won’t be free, and I also know that a human actor that wants someone to to scout out movie roles for them is gonna have to pony up.
I’d wonder where these folks get the gall, but hey–this IS America.