Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

In the scene where the actor takes a turtle from an aquarium of several turtles and injects it with a syringe, the actor used a retractable syringe to pretend to inject each of the four turtles in the underside of the shell.

In the scene where we see a rat sitting in a tank in a scientist’s office, the rat was safely contained in a 5.5 gallon container with bedding and a water bottle. Trainers monitored the rat whenever she was on set.

In the scene where the turtle hits its head against a tank, this was all done through CGI.

In the scene when the lab is on fire and the actress saves the turtles and the rat, production filmed animals in their tanks with tight shots, and with the trainers hands picking them up. Trainers brought the rat to the set, placed her on mark on the lab table next to the turtle tank and used food to get her stand up against tank with live fire/ flame bars behind the table. The rat climbed up the side of the reinforced turtle cage to get to the food trainers held at the top of the tank.