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‘A Dog’s Purpose’ Receives Backlash After Video Surfaces, Filmmaker Responds

By Mandy Robinson
Published on: 18:53 PST, Jan 18, 2017

The new movie A Dog’s Purpose looked like a huge hit and a lot of people were excited about the film. Now A Dog’s Purpose is receiving a ton of backlash after a video of a German Shephard filming part of the flick was revealed. CNN shared the details about what went down and why everyone is so upset. TMZ actually published the video of the dog on their site. It is about one-minute long and shows the dog very unwilling to jump into the water and film a scene for the movie A Dog’s Purpose.

A Dog’s Purpose producer Amblin Entertainment and distributor Universal Pictures gave out a statement on their thoughts. They said, “While we continue to review the circumstances shown in the edited footage, Amblin is confident that great care and concern was shown for the German Shepherd Hercules, as well as for all of the other dogs featured throughout the production of the film.” Producers of A Dog’s Purpose are saying that they went through several days of training to make sure the dog was comfortable with the scene before attempting to film it. On the day of the filming, the dog didn’t want to do, and so they didn’t.

In the video shared by TMZ, the dog is leaned up against the person trying to get him to go into the water. It is very obvious that he doesn’t want to go in, but they continue to try to get him to do it. They even dip the dog into the water and then pull him back out. After that, the dog is seen swimming and obviously unhappy about it. The dog is even seen going under water like he is having a lot of trouble.

This scene for A Dog’s Purpose was filmed in a pool outside Winnipeg, Canada in November 2015. It is unknown if dog going under the water was supposed to happen for the film or not, but when it did someone yelled “cut.” Peta is now very upset about what happened and is calling for a boycott of the movie now.

EW shared that the filmmakers of A Dog’s Purpose are speaking out about this video now. Director Lasse Hallstrom spoke out on Twitter saying he was “disturbed” by the video and also said, “I did not witness these actions. We were all committed to providing a loving and safe environment for all the animals in the film. … I have been promised that a thorough investigation into this situation is underway and that any wrongdoing will be reported and punished.” Josh Gad, who was the voice of the dog in the movie, was never on the set. He didn’t have a reason to be since he was just a voice. He is looking for answers and said, “I am shaken and sad to see any animal put in a situation against its will.” Now that an investigation is being done about what went down on the set of A Dog’s Purpose, maybe everyone will get some answers as to why this happened.

Are you shocked by this video from the filming of A Dog’s Purpose? Are you going to be boycotting this movie now or will you see it when it hits theaters on January 27? The dog that was seen in this video is named Hercules and is said to be “happy and healthy” now. Sound off in the comments section below on your thoughts.

[Featured Image By Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images]

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