New animal adventure film violates real dog’s purpose

Another new movie of 2017 that is expected to premier this year is a film that has brought much excitement and anticipation for its arrival. Many people who have seen the trailer for the family friendly movie, “A Dog’s Purpose,” were brought to tears by the storyline and the automatic connection you feel between the main canine character, Bailey, and his owner.

The movie is based on the book, “A Dog’s Purpose,” by W. Bruce Cameron and is about the life of Bailey, who is led through a long process involving reincarnation as various breeds of dogs, where along the way, he discovers what his purpose as a pet is.

“A Dog’s Purpose” was a movie that was a must-see for audiences that wanted to watch something filled with emotion and satisfy their love for dogs onscreen, but a few days after the release, a video recorded on the set of the movie by TMZ made many people save their money for another film.

The movie has been receiving lots of backlash from the video as it shows disturbing footage of a German shepard being forced into rushing water, which is used in one of the scenes for the movie.

In the video it exhibits the German shepherd, who is named Hercules, and his trainer sitting at the edge of the pool that is coursing with rushing water.

The video clearly shows the trainer nudging Hercules toward the edge of the pool to get the German shepherd to jump in, but the dog shows clear signs of restraint. Instead of relenting, the trainer takes Hercules by the collar and forcibly lowers the dog into the water, but Hercules still refuses to get in and attempts to climb back up despite the trainer’s coercion.

In another clip, Hercules is in the water, but with the force of the turbulents recreating a river, Hercules is submerged under water and handlers rush to the animal’s aid.

PETA has called for a boycott against the movie production and requests for director Lasse Hallstrom and producer Gavin Polone to pledge to never use animals in films again.

And while Polone is an animal rights activist, he believes that the situation was a mischaracterization of how filming the scene with Hercules really was. The scene had been run through many times before, but the dog only started acting up when they switched sides of the pools from where the German shepherd had been practicing the scene multiple times before.

But if that is the case, then why not just switch back to the side that the dog was more comfortable with? Why resort to force and put the animal in harm’s way?

Also, on set there was a monitor from the American Humane Association whose job is to make sure that the animals on set are safe and treated correctly, but since the video recorded by TMZ was taken a little over a year ago, it is now in speculation as to why no report was filed.

I believe that even if Hercules had been comfortable with jumping into the turbulent water before, it is still no excuse for the trainer to use force and essentially abuse the dog by forcing the dog into the water when it clearly did not want to. Animals are living beings, and should be treated with the same respect a person would expect.

Although “A Dog’s Purpose” sounds like a fun family movie to watch but also cry to, it’d be hard for me to watch a film knowing that in the process of making this movie, an animal was mistreated and nobody cared to do anything about it until the video of the abuse occurring was released for the public to see. The good news that has come out of the situation, though, is that Hercules is good and healthy.