… for a film. We train it as the job comes in. So a typical day if we had an animal in for training would probably be walking and exercise to care for the physical and mental health of the dog, cat, pig or another animal that we’re working with. Then you’d probably spend 20 minutes working on the task that the animal is required to do in the ad or movie. You have to spend time teaching it how to learn and it’s all reward-based.
“We have to teach them to enjoy the rewards and then you teach them or kind of accidentally lure them into doing something. You keep rewarding that action and then that way they then learn what it is that gets them the reward.
“Very often, in the beginning, it looks like we’re getting nowhere. Especially the first couple of weeks can feel like a long time, but as soon as the dog catches on to the idea, suddenly, it then moves so much quicker, because they’ve figured it out and they become much more creative with offering you different things. It frees up their mind so they can almost guess what it is you’re looking for. The more they’re trained in that sort of format, the quicker they are at getting new tasks.