One of the most enjoyable aspects of this business is getting involved in a project that offer a new challenge. When Gary and I saw the layout for the new Pedigree ad, we assumed it would be a fairly routine shoot. After all, we've worked with animals and trainers for a long time and have come to believe that if we need a dog to herd cats, there's a trainer with a dog who can pull that off for us. Since we needed to put together numbers, I emailed the layout to several LA trainers and they agreed that this wouldn't present a big problem.

The curve came the next day. The dog in the layout is an English Bulldog, a fairly large dog with a short snout and a BIG tongue. But the ad would feature a small dog, something under twenty pounds. When I began calling the trainers to verify this was no problem, I found out it was. The story was similar from Bow Wow, Studio Animal Services, Hollywood Animals, Paws, and Animal Actors of Hollywood. Small dogs do not normally extend their tongues unless they're hot or out-of-breath. The studio would need to be kept warm and it would need to be large enough to accomodate running the dogs or would need to be close to an area where the dogs could be run. Extending tongues is not a trick which can be easily taught if it isn't already in the dog's natural actions. Uh-oh. Our first choice for the studio was now out. Our producer, Connie Connally, found a studio that would work but wasn't really convenient to the agency. More phone calls and emails.

After factoring in trainers for casting several breeds, the larger studio and additional time to find the perfect tongue, we turned in numbers. Negotiation ensued. A few days later we learned we'd been given the nod and casting commenced. A dozen breeds were photographed. One trainer discovered a trick that helped ensure the tongue would extend and that gave us confidence that one way or another we'd get the shot.

Some of the breeds were eliminated quickly. The final group included a Boston Terrier, a Jack Russell terrier (two, actually), a Beagle, and a Pomeranian. After a lot of preparation, the shoot went quite smoothly. Tongues lolled, film was exposed and clients smiled.

It was fun to get big folders of digital pics from all the trainers, but at one point it dawned on us that we were spending hours discussing little dogs who could extend their tongues and agreed not to discuss this with people not in the business. It could sound like a Monty Python skit.

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