Life Itself (2014)

Throughout the film, the lead actress has a dog, who is seen performing such mild action as sitting/lying, being held or petted, and walking on or off leash. For all of these scenes, trainers used hand signals and verbal commands to cue the mild action, which the trained dog was accustomed to performing. The whimpering/barking was also a trained behavior.

In the scene where the actor walks into his apartment building with the dog on the leash, the trainer gives the actor the leash with the dog. Actor controls leashed dog walking with him through doorway, lobby, and starts to go up the stairs.

In the scene where the actress picks the dog up from the ground and the dog whimpers and the actress carries the dog down a flight of stairs and into a taxi cab, the trainer showed the actress how to hold the dog and what marks to hit.

In the scene where the dog gets an MRI in the vet’s office, a vet tech assisted in comfortably placing the dog in the MRI room, and placing tubes around him. Trainers stood just off camera giving the dog cues to keep him calm.

In the scene where a search dog sniffs an actor kneeling on the ground, trainers placed food around the actor. As a result the dog went straight to the actor, eating the food, making it look as if he’s sniffing the area. Sidewalk was cleared of the public.

Due to limited resources, the American Humane Association was not able to cover other dog action.