A Hollywood Animal Trainer's Secrets For Getting Dogs To Act On Cue

Transcript

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. One of the most gripping film performances I've seen in the past year was by a dog - well, make that two dogs who share the leading role in the Hungarian drama "White God." It won an award at the Cannes Film Festival for having an original aim and aesthetic. But I don't think many people in the U.S. saw it. It's just come out on DVD, so this is my chance to talk with Teresa Ann Miller, who cast the two leading dogs and trained them. She's trained animals for movie and TV roles for over 20 years. She initially worked with her father, who also trained animals for the screen. They both worked on the "Babe" and "Beethoven" films. But "White God" is unlike any film she's done and perhaps unlike any that's been made in that there are scenes with over 200 dogs running in a pack through the streets of Budapest, and there's no special effects, no CGI. The story revolves around a 13-year-old girl and her dog, Hagen. They're both deposited with her father in his small apartment when her mother - the parents are divorced - leaves for a trip. In the film, there's a new tax in Hungary on dogs like Hagen who are not purebred and are considered inferior. Rather than pay the tax and deal with the unwanted nuisance of a dog, the father forces the dog out of the car on the entrance to a highway as his horrified daughter protests in vain. The film follows the now homeless Hagen who meets other abandoned dogs. Hagen is forced to become vicious when he falls into the hands of a dog fighter who trains him and enters him into a fight. Hagen and other discarded dogs eventually seek revenge against the people who have mistreated them.

Teresa Miller, welcome to FRESH AIR. I love this film, and congratulations on the work that you did with the dogs. It's really remarkable. So what were you told that the director needed from you when you agreed to do the film?

TERESA ANN MILLER: They contacted me to do this film mostly because of the - how ambitious the project was. This wasn't necessarily a film with an animal in it. It was a dog leading the film and telling the story.

GROSS: So what were you told to look for in the dogs? What were you told they needed to do?

MILLER: They had to have an acting range that should go from the most lovable, playful, endearing pet dog to this little girl, Lili, and find himself helpless on the streets - insecure, helpless, uncomfortable, unknowing - and then at one point, he has to transfer and kind of become this knower of all, runner of the streets, guardian of the city. So it was a huge range that they needed him to portray from his innocence right up to his vigilance in - oh, how do you say - getting his...

GROSS: Revenge.

MILLER: Sorry, yeah, his revenge, thank you - his revenge on the people that kind of harmed him earlier on.

GROSS: So how did you cast these dogs? How did you go looking for them? How did you find them?

MILLER: Casting the dogs was, I thought, incredibly difficult because Kornel wanted that one dog who would stand out.

GROSS: That's the director.

MILLER: Yes, I'm sorry. Kornel Mundruczo is our director. And he was very, very clear that this one lead dog had to be different than the other 250 dogs around him - mixed breeds. So there's the challenge right there - to find that one-in-a-million dog. However, he needed to have a photo double just for the amount of work that was scripted in the script, you know. And so it was a two-in-a-million dog that we were looking for. And it was actually first based on his appearance, which sometimes it is here. That's kind of Hollywood, right (laughter) - Hollywood via Budapest. It was appearance first. And, of course, we wanted to be sure he was great with kids, and this dog had grown up in a family with small children and what have you. And from then on, the challenge was exposing him to everything. He'd never been out of his front yard. He lived in a very small town in Arizona, hadn't seen very many things, hadn't seen cars in traffic. And it actually added to our experience in Budapest and kind of added to Hagen's experience on film seeing things for the first time.

GROSS: So would you describe what Luke and Body look like? And these are the two dogs who share the role of the leading dog, Hagen, in "White God."

MILLER: Luke and Body, the two lead dogs in the movie, they really are what we call a Heinz 57 mixed breed. When the director asked for one in a million, I think that's exactly what we delivered. They are an obvious cross of Labrador and shar-pei. And I say that because of the shape of their heads are a little bit more Labrador, and their minds are brilliant - just very good companion dogs, very intelligent, very active. The shar-pei you can see in the wrinkles around their face and a little bit more compact body and the tail that comes up and around on the back. And then I even believe there's some hound in there somewhere because they howl - they howl in the morning. They howl at night. They howl - (laughter) there's got to be hound dog in there somewhere. And...

GROSS: So you found them, like, in a classified ad?

MILLER: Yeah. So I contacted them, and told them that I was an animal trainer, and I'd be spending a lot of time with them. And I picked them up and brought them back to my place in California. I hadn't quite realized how much they didn't know (laughter). They grew up in that small yard, you know, out in the desert kind of isolated from different things. And they'd never even been on a leash before.

GROSS: Wow.

MILLER: And so from the very beginning, it was a huge, big experience for them.

GROSS: The faces of the two dogs who you cast in the lead - the leading role of Hagen - these dogs' faces are so expressive. And when Hagen is forced out of the car and abandoned on the highway in the beginning of the movie, he looks - the dog looks so confused and so hurt and so sad. And he's there alone on the street disoriented as these, like, honking cars are driving past him at a high speed. It's just heartbreaking to watch. How did you get those expressions on the dogs' faces? How do you get a dog to show emotion?

MILLER: It was - (laughter). Everything that the dog does is a reflection of either my body language or my tone of voice. A lot of times - and the best example I can give you is in a lot of your obedience and Schutzhund work, you give very direct cues, very one-word and one-syllable commands to the dog. And you get a quick reaction to what you're asking him to do, ultimately. So you would tell him to sit, stay, come, what have you. When you're working with animals in film, what we do is we use a much more relaxed attitude, a much more relaxed and loose personality in ourselves. So I might say, hey, get over there and stay, no stay. Don't - oh, look - you know? And that kind of keeps him looking and keeps him guessing and keeps him - it gives him a little bit more range to be able to see what's going on around him, and yet I can keep his attention at the same time. In our commands - go over here. Can you - good - lie down. Good, look here - nope. Hey - oh, what's over there, you know. And I might throw a little stone off to the left or to the right and give him something to look at and be confused by. And then I might change it real quick and say, hey, you should get up. Stand up, stand up. Back up, back up, back up - look. And now he might look a little confused. And then I'll say, OK, you can come out. So just to give you an example, with my tone - and I am speaking over the entire film. I mean, everything that we do with those animals, you know, they have to dub when we're working with the actors. They have to dub the actors' voices over because that's how you get the best performance from an animal, is by him being able to hear and see you and react to the different various commands that you're asking him.

GROSS: How do you get a dog to look sad, to look lost and abandoned?

MILLER: To look sad and lost, what I do is just talk very slow. Put your head down and leave it, and just watch. And they might sulk their head down a little bit and sulk their ears down. And we even taught Luke and Body how to put their tail down, and they both have very curly tails. And I even taught them, put your tail down. So he didn't look happy, and I'll just talk to him in that tone. And then I'll tell him to speak real easy, and he might give a little bit of a cry. And then I might tell him just to lie down and put your head down. Keep it down. And he'll just react off my voice and off my body language and the kind of looks that I want him to get. And I might have my assistant co-trainer just shuffle their feet a little bit in the ground to get them to look to the left and to look to the right - everything done very low key, very sad, very slow tone. The reverse of that, of course, would be, hey, look here. Good, are you a happy dog? Can you speak, speak, speak? And now his tail's wagging, and now he's up and everything. And at that same moment, I can say, now stop and put your head down and watch. It takes a good couple of months to get to where we're in tune that way and he knows to kind of mirror my voice and my body language.

GROSS: Wow. If you're just joining us, my guest is Teresa Miller, and she trains animals for movie and TV roles. She's trained the two dogs who share the leading role in the Hungarian dramatic film "White God," which just came out on DVD. We'll talk more about training animals for movies after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guest is Teresa Miller. She's followed in the footsteps of her father, training animals for movies and TV roles. They both worked on the "Babe" and "Beethoven" films. She trained the two dogs who share the leading role in the Hungarian drama "White God," which just came out on DVD. It's about dogs who were abandoned because they're not purebred and later seek their revenge.

So we've been talking about the two dogs you trained who share the role - the leading role of Hagen - the dog Hagen in "White God." And after this dog is abandoned and learns to fend for himself on the streets along with other abandoned dogs, he's taken by a homeless man who sells the dog for a plate of food. And the dog winds up in the hands of a dogfighting trainer. And the dogfighter teaches this gentle, loving dog to be prepared to fight and kill another dog. So one of the things you had to train your dogs to do - or at least one of the two dogs - is to growl and to look vicious when he's baring his teeth. How do you train a dog to bare its teeth 'cause usually that's a sign that the dog is really angry and ready to strike?

MILLER: Keep in mind they were only a year old when we were working with them. So they were quite young, quite playful. And what we taught them was to kind of build their confidence and make them a little possessive over a particular item, and - kind of like it was in the film with that bone tied on the board. But we didn't beat them and abuse them and scare them into being aggressive, you know what I mean? All we do is let him have that, let him enjoy it and now teach him to first just look at me while you're eating it. And then he'll look, and I'll walk away. So he says, oh, OK, this is my bone. So now the next minute, he's eating on his bone, I might look at him a little bit more, come in a little closer. And when he gives me a look for maybe two seconds, I'll walk away. And he's learning, oh, OK, so I get to keep this bone as long as I look and react to the trainer. And as we build this on - and it takes months to develop and confidence because, you know, they're not aggressive at all, and they don't mean it angrily.

All I'm teaching them is a physical response to what I'm asking and allowing them to do. And so they put it together actually, you know, after quite a few sessions to where now maybe the lip might twitch, and I'll just walk away. And teach him, oh, OK - so each time he's learning that the more possessive or protective he gets over his bone, the longer he gets to eat on the bone. But at the same time, I can walk right up to him and pet him afterwards and say good boy and play with him ball and play with him everything else. So I'm really teaching him just to have that reaction and that response to that particular article. And at no point does he do it anywhere else except for in that situation. So I can still work him with actors. I can still work him with children. I can still work him with all these things because indeed he is just acting. He's not angry or aggressive in any manner.

And the interesting thing is both dogs were put in the same training at the same time, but Body just wasn't as good at it. Body did more of the deep barking. And the deep anger-growling was Body, but he didn't show any teeth for some reason. And Luke is the one who really, really could show his teeth and lift his lips so high. And so Luke got to do all of those scenes where you really see his teeth showing. And then Body, on the other side, gives the character a little bit more of that serious dark-barking attitude as if he's going to approach or attack, you know. So it was a good combination between the two dogs.

GROSS: Were the growls that were used and the barks that were used from your actual dogs, or were they dubbed from other dogs?

MILLER: They were - interesting enough - I learned this at Sundance from my director again - and he said that the dubbing of the dog sounds actually came from a studio in Belgium. And he says it was two guys in a studio who did all of the sound effects for the dogs. I mean, we had recorded barks and growls...

GROSS: Wait, wait, wait. Do you mean it was, like, two men going woof, that kind of - (laughter).

MILLER: Literally for the dog fight.

GROSS: Really?

MILLER: Well, a little more believable. Yeah, but...

GROSS: No, I know.

MILLER: But, yeah, for the dog fight and everything. They laid all that in and the growling - (growling) - that kind of situation, you know what I mean?

GROSS: Wow.

MILLER: And - yeah, I was quite surprised. But everyone was saying, oh, my gosh, the sounds were so brutal and everything. And Kornel says, actually, it was a couple of guys in Belgium in a studio who...

GROSS: (Laughter) So amazing.

MILLER: ...Did the dog fight. And he said it was fascinating to watch. He says he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

GROSS: So let's talk about the pack scenes. And I don't want to give away too much of the plot here. But there's scenes at the beginning and the end of the movie where there's a pack of over 200 dogs. Did you say 250?

MILLER: The maximum was 250 dogs, yeah, yeah.

GROSS: And these are, like, real dogs running in a pack down the streets of Budapest. And it's - I've never seen that many real dogs running like that, and they're running with a purpose. I mean, as the TV newscaster in the film said, they look like they're part of an organized army. And they kind of are because they're out for revenge. So I know you didn't train the pack dogs. You trained the two dogs who share the leading role. But your dogs interact with the pack dogs. And I'm figuring you were around for those pack scenes. How much did your dogs interact with those dogs, and how much of it was just editing?

MILLER: Quite a bit, quite a bit. We have definite shots of my dogs leading. And when I say my dogs, it was the animals that I supplied, was the Hagen character of course - Luke and Body. And then the little Jack Russell terrier was trained by April Morley, and she came from Los Angeles also. And then...

GROSS: I'll just interrupt and say this is a little abandoned dog that Hagen finds when he's first abandoned. And they become good friends, but they're separated a couple of times during the course of the film.

MILLER: Yeah, she's the first one to actually reach out to this lonely, stray, you know, pup on the streets. And so we got together two weeks before filming. We met Arpad Halasz and his team in Budapest.

GROSS: That's the Hungarian animal trainer?

MILLER: Exactly, exactly. He was the coordinator there. And we had probably about 12 of his dogs working with my dogs because there was smaller scenes where they're interacting, first meeting each other, doing some of the more composed, smaller fights and wrestling matches and what have you. So we worked a good two weeks together for that. Then we had some additional time to get my dogs comfortable running in front of his pack of probably 50. I don't think we ever went higher than 50 - 40 or 50. We started with 10 dogs behind him, 20 dogs behind him just to give him the confidence that they weren't chasing him per se. It was more a pack run. But yet, he had to lead it, you know? So again, here's this little boy from Arizona (laughter) coming to Budapest.

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER: And he's seeing the world through a whole different pair of eyes now.

GROSS: (Laughter).

MILLER: But, no, it was nice. It was a good relationship. It's great experience for the dogs. And - but, no, he was not involved when we did the large, large pack runs because it was too hard to predict and keep those other dogs behind him.

GROSS: How did the dogs know to stay behind your dog, which was supposed to be the lead dog, literally, the leader of the pack?

MILLER: They did not at all.

GROSS: Yeah.

MILLER: Yeah, they did not at all. It was all timing. It was all timing. We had - there are other dogs behind a particular fenced area. And then I would have my trainers hand-release...

GROSS: Oh, I see.

MILLER: ...My two dogs. And so on the timing, I would call my dogs. They would get the head start. And then we would release all the dogs behind them. And so that's the only way that we could predict - and there were several scenes when they got past. I mean, there were several scenes, but we cut before, you know, so you only see the beginning of it when the dogs are running to catch up with them. And then we just cut away from it before they actually took over his leadership. Then it looks like he's being overthrown.

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER: But, no, it went quite well. They did a fantastic job. They had four months to prepare it. He has a beautiful dog school there outside of Budapest, where he teaches flyball and obedience and all your dog sports. And so he has a lot of contacts to a lot of dog owners besides his own dogs that he trains for local movies and what have you. And he had quite a lot of time to put that together. And what pushed the endeavor even another step was the fact that production and he made contact with a local animal shelter and actually incorporated animals from the shelter into that running pack as well, and that was amazing to see. That was fascinating. I've never seen it done. I've never seen such a large pack of dogs run together. And quite honestly, I don't think we'd ever do it here just for the time that it takes. You know, it's so much easier just to CGI it, but the director didn't want that effect at all.

GROSS: My guest is Teresa Miller, who trains animals for movies and TV shows. The film we've been discussing, "White God," just came out on DVD. We'll talk more about training animals for movies and TV shows and about growing up with the movie star animals her father trained after we take a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Teresa Ann Miller, who trains animals for movies and TV shows - so did her father. They worked together on "Babe" and the "Beethoven" films. Miller trained the two dogs Body and Luke, who share the leading role and give remarkable performances in the Hungarian film "White God," which just came out on DVD. The story is set in Budapest, where, in the film, there's a new tax imposed on mixed breed dogs, who are considered inferior. Abandoned dogs eventually seek revenge against the people who have mistreated them. When we left off, we were talking about scenes in which a pack of up to 200 dogs runs through the city streets.

So during at least one of the scenes where the pack is running, there are some people who are on the streets and are totally and understandably panicked. So you have people who are acting because they're actors, acting as if - or stuntmen, whatever - but they're acting as if they're totally panicked. That could easily upset the dogs, right? So did you train the dogs to be comfortable around people who were acting as if they were panicked?

MILLER: We did. But they didn't really - I mean, they just thought it was a party.

GROSS: (Laughter).

MILLER: I mean, they just - you know, in the early training, Arpad would have his trainers run through the packs of dogs and in front of the packs of dogs. And, again, the screams were put in later. The music helps, you know, sell it. And the panic - a lot of it was shot, you know, a little bit separately, and the dogs chasing a woman into the car. And so the dogs just thought, again, it was just a big party. And none of them were going to attack anybody or to necessarily stomp on anybody. They were just running to get to their other set because on the other side is where they were going to get all their treats and goodies. And so whatever obstacles were in the way, they would find their way around it, you know. So it actually worked out well to incorporate the people running ahead of them and running inside, you know, the pack as well.

GROSS: So where were you during the running of the pack scenes?

MILLER: I was there. I was there...

GROSS: There in the middle? There on the side? Physically, where were you?

MILLER: Yeah, coordinating the timing, coordinating the collection, being an extra set of eyes, you know, to be sure. You know, when we started the pack running, we would set up this pen around the corner of the building. And the dogs - we'd rehearse the dogs maybe once just to see their path. But before that, you know, I'm on set making sure that - well, I don't want them to come around the corner blind. We should block this streetlight with something. We should be careful with this fire hydrant. I want to be sure that nobody's coming out of this store. Let's make sure that when the camera is on the camera car, we need to put boards around it. It was a little ATV that the camera was on, and we had somebody driving in front of the pack dogs. And there was a spotter in the front to be sure they weren't close to any dogs, but I also wanted to make sure that there were bumpers around the side so no dogs could accidentally go in front or underneath it. And so this was all part of my job. And my experience in working here in Hollywood was to take that, especially the safety aspect, and make sure that all of those things were in place. Over there in Budapest, to be sure that all of the animals were being treated. You know, checking their pads after they run to be sure we're not wearing them down - just everything - just coordinating the whole sense and foreseeing things that somebody else might not foresee, you know, when I'm not working my dog in that scene as well.

GROSS: And I just have to ask you, you know, we mentioned that the dog is trained to be a fight dog, and there is a fight scene. And it looks really vicious. I'm sure the dogs weren't attacking each other in real life (laughter) on the set. What were they doing?

MILLER: They were. They were just playing like crazy. Again, this is something, you know, it took us a good four weeks in Los Angeles to introduce the two dogs and to see who was going to be the best wrestlers. And, again, Luke, being the silliest - he's really the silliest out of the two. Body is the more sensible - I'm going to see what happens first. And Luke, he's the jump in and be crazy. He's a nut. He's going to act first and think about it later. And it worked really well for the play scene because he really enjoyed playing with the Rottweiler. And in teaching him and Bernard - Bernard was wonderful. He was the Rottweiler, and he loved to roll and scratch his back and roll on the carpet and what have you. And so we'd build up little play sessions. They didn't see each other except for when they were playing in the fight ring. And so we would do that two to three times a day. We would get the two together and just let them wrestle - just let them wrestle in the ring. They can see each other. We'd say, get him, get him, get him. And we'd encourage them to go, you know, tackle or play with the other one. And eventually, they built up a great trust between them, and we were able to get longer and longer sequences of them playing.

The difficult thing about filming that scene is that, you know, they get tired and bored after a little bit. And so we literally - we were shooting at that location for a full week. And we would start our days in the dogfight arena and let the dogs play in the fresh of the morning and see each other and take advantage of that energy, and then sometimes at night, when we wrap. So it actually took a week to shoot that scene to get the most footage that we could out of their wrestling match. But indeed, they were really just playing. They learned to be great play buddies. Body never quite liked it. He didn't really trust the Rottweiler. He's my sensible one (laughter). And so he didn't really partake in the wrestling match. However, he is in the ring when the handler's holding him, and he's doing his deep bark and growls and trying to get away and get away from the actor to go get the Rottweiler. That was his big participation in that scene.

GROSS: For our listeners just tuning in, I'm talking with Teresa Miller. She trains animals for movies and TV roles, and she trained the two dogs who share the leading role in the Hungarian dramatic film "White God," which just came out on DVD. We'll talk more about training animals for movies and TV after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR and if you're just joining us, my guest is Teresa Miller. She followed in the footsteps of her father training animals for movie and TV roles. They both worked on "Babe" and the "Beethoven" films. She trained the two dogs who share the leading role in the Hungarian drama, "White God," which just came out on DVD. It's about dogs who are abandoned because they're not purebred and later, they seek their revenge. You adopted the two dogs who you trained for the Hungarian movie, "White God." I can see very easily how you fell in love with them and why you'd want to keep them. Did you or your father end up living with the dog or dogs from the "Beethoven" films?

MILLER: Oh, of course, yeah.

GROSS: Oh, really?

MILLER: Of course, yeah. Yeah, St. Bernards at the house, Great Danes at the house growing up. Strange - even stranger than that was, you know, my father did "Cujo" as well. And I grew up with these St. Bernards, you know...

GROSS: "Cujo" is from a Stephen King horror novel...

MILLER: Oh, my gosh.

GROSS: ...And the dog is bit by a bat and becomes this kind of like monster dog.

MILLER: Yeah and interesting was yeah, he gets rabies, terrorizes this whole little southern, you know, western coast or what have you. And, I mean, I'd seen him training the dogs. And I knew the dogs as pets and never had any qualms. And I knew he went to go do the movie, and he came back. And it wasn't until I saw the movie - I was honest to God - I was terrified of these dogs after seeing the movie. I just couldn't believe it. And it was then scary to go in the backyard at night and see one standing there looking at you. It just changed my whole, you know - and that's just amazing. I mean, when someone can do that - I mean, those are my pets. Those are my St. Bernards at home. And they got me to second-guess them after seeing that movie. That was something.

GROSS: But you got over it?

MILLER: Oh, my gosh that movie was tough. Yeah, it was just - it really interesting how it, you know, you have to put the reality into it that, like, no, these are your dogs. It's all good it's all - but that was my dad's specialty was doing the Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde kind of characters. And he did it in the movie "White Dog." That was a Samuel Fuller movie with a white German Shepherd as well as "Cujo," and they only kill their masters and "The Doberman Gang." I mean, that was his specialty doing "Amityville Horror" - all of the dogs that did the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So this was my first chance to be able to do that type of genre that he'd done for so many years so well.

GROSS: So there's a scene in the first "Beethoven" film, which you both worked on that - you and your father, that's the kind of family-friendly comedy version of a scene in "White God," the Hungarian drama. And it's a scene where people have been keeping dogs caged for malevolent reasons. And the dogs get out of the cages and seek their revenge. And in "Beethoven," the dogs are these like cute little dogs, and they're running after a very young Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt who are going like (screaming). And in "White God," it's this like huge pack of dogs, and it's really dramatic and serious.

MILLER: I hadn't even considered that similarity in that pack scene, but you're absolutely right, yeah. And it's basically the same theory just with so, so many, you know, fewer dogs running in the pack.

GROSS: And one's played for laughs and one's, like, pure...

MILLER: Sure.

GROSS: ...Pure drama.

MILLER: Sure.

GROSS: So...

MILLER: One of my - I have to tell you one of my...

GROSS: Yeah.

MILLER: ...My funniest memories of that particular scene was we had a golden retriever named Sandy. And Sandy,

again, was a pet that lived at our house. But he played the dog on the TV show "Punky Brewster" in the '80s - and a beautiful little golden retriever. So we put him in the pack scene to run with the rest of the dogs. He was off that week. And we put him in that scene. And it's funny because when they run through the fruit market and knock over all the fruit stands and everything, that silly dog picks up, it's either a cabbage or a melon, and runs with it in his mouth because he's a retriever. He couldn't just leave all that good fruit behind. And it's funny if you see the first "Beethoven" like that, you'll actually see Sandy picking up the fruit and running with it in his mouth. And he's not supposed to, but he just couldn't help himself. So that was just very cute memory that I have from that particular scene.

GROSS: Oh, that's just hysterical.

MILLER: It is funny.

GROSS: So your father was training animals for movies and TV when you were growing up. How did you decide you wanted to go into that profession, too?

MILLER: Oh, I would help him. I would go to work with him on weekends and during summer break. You know, I'd help him always if he was working with a kid, you know, my brother and I got to be that kid (laughter) who got our faces licked and had to walk with the dog or had to have the dog lay on her so what have you. You know, we would essentially just help him with his training. And my house was more or less the house to be at. I mean, we always had different things there. We had, you know, chickens one day and a little raccoon the next day. We even had a seal in our bathtub one time overnight because my dad was working the seal the next day.

GROSS: (Laughter).

MILLER: And, I mean, it was just a blast. I mean, it was just such an experience growing up, you know, to be surrounded by so many different critters and what have you. And later on as I got closer to finishing high school, I was really kind of leaning into going into photography and thought I would work him just to kind of get to make some contacts and some people and see what I can do as far as being a, you know, maybe a still photographer in the industry. Well, the longer I worked with him and the more we worked together, we really clicked. I mean, we really had a great understanding, you know, of working together as a team. And I learned so much from him and working with the dogs, and I loved it so much that I just continued. I mean, I loved it that much. And I was enjoying it more. And it turned out to be something that I was good at. And so as I was able and learned and accomplished more, you know, he would send me out on bigger and different jobs. And instead of just background jobs, I'd get to do character jobs now and, you know, jobs with cats and what have you. And that's really how it developed. And my brother's in the industry as well, but not as a dog trainer. He specializes in reptiles, alligators, snakes, insects, all those type of things. And that's really his specialty since he was young, you know, he had the snakes growing up as a kid. And that was always more his direction. And so we're in it together but doing different aspects of it in the same, you know, category here. So - but, yeah. So that's just what happened. That's - we worked together quite well, and it was something I really enjoyed doing and I, you know, how can you not love working with the animals?

GROSS: Did your brother supply the flies that are buzzing around a dead dog in "White God?"

MILLER: No, no, no, and again, I'm going to ruin your movie.

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER: That was actually just kind of a sound effect.

GROSS: OK.

MILLER: And there may have been some gnats nearby or something. But we didn't really have flies around it too much. It was an artificial, you know, stuffed dog that was laying on the side of the road. And we kind of grunged (ph) it up and put some - and to get Lukey to come in there and really look at it and figure out what happened to this dog, we put some noise buzzers underneath him. And every time I would push a different buzzer, he would look left, he would look right, he would look under the dog, and that would really make it look like he was trying to figure out what happened to this poor dog because I couldn't be there to try to get him to look in the proper direction. And so that's another little trick that we have, you know, is put little noise makers underneath it so that when you heard it one way, he'd look left or look right.

GROSS: How did your father get into the business of training animals for movies and TV?

MILLER: Originally, my father was an Air Force dog handler in Lompoc, Calif. here on the West Coast at Vandenberg Air Force Base. And he would train century dogs to protect the missiles at the Air Force Base because he was bored basically. He didn't like working these night shifts with nothing to do but guard these missiles. And so he signed on to take on a century dog. And now he had his century dog as companionship and to help protect the missiles. But in his spare time, he would train the dog because he was also still bored and wanted to do things with this dog. So he actually got famous around town because he was this civil - this Air Force airman who had a century dog who would push a baby stroller down the street or dress-up and wear a bonnet and do all these cute and clever tricks as well as guard the missiles. And he met my mother, who worked nearby there. He used to do obedience classes and what have you. And so she, of course, signed her dog up to get to know him. And once he got out of the Air Force and after I was born, he started contacting Frank Inn incorporated, Rudd Weatherwax, Carl Spitz, all of the trainers that were actively working with animals in film at the time. And finally, got an offer after being persistent and bugging and bugging, he finally got Frank Inn to give him a chance and give him a dog to train to find out what skills he had. And one of those dogs was the original "Benji" dog who was in "Petticoat Junction" as Higgins. And he used to work on those shows with him. So that's kind of how he got started, was just apprenticeship and learning from working with the trainers that worked in that company handling various types of animals. And the rest is history. He finally got his own company in 1977 and ran his own company for, gosh, almost 30 years.

GROSS: So you've trained cats as well as dogs to perform in movies. I think it's much harder to train a cat than a dog. How do you train a cat?

MILLER: Well, working with a cat...

GROSS: What's the incentive?

MILLER: Yeah, the incentive for working with a cat or a chicken or a pig or what have you - most of your animals that don't necessarily work for praise like a dog. I think a dog is the only animal that genuinely wants your attention and your affection and praise. Working with the other animals is typically working with a food reward. And it doesn't mean starve the animal. It just means that when the animal is in training, that he's learning while he's getting his breakfast, lunch and dinner. So he's not being deprived in any way. It's just that while he's doing his learning, he's getting his regular meals. And so - and the difference also being on a project where I might have one or two dogs to play the role of the lead character, with a cat you'd probably have four or five cats because again, you don't have that food drive for very long. Once they get a little full, well, now they're not interested in working anymore, you know what I mean? And so now you would bring in the second cat to try to continue your day and work out for the rest of the scene. So it is quite different; it is quite different working with them. But you still can teach them how to retrieve, how to go to point A to point B, how to go and rub up on an actor - you've seen it in all your cat commercials or what have you. So there's quite a bit you can still teach them to do, it's just what they're limited to physically, you know, between their size and their physical abilities.

GROSS: Teresa Miller, thank you so much for talking with us.

MILLER: Thank you very much.

GROSS: Teresa Ann Miller trained the animals for the Hungarian film "White God," which has just come out on DVD. Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews the new album by Ashley Monroe. This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.