A Dog’s Purpose Creates Outburst

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A Dog’s Purpose Creates Outburst

A Dog’s Purpose, the movie about one dog’s many lives, seemed like a heart-warming story. However, this image of heart-warming was quickly destroyed last week after on-set footage was released by TMZ. This footage shows a German Shepherd dog, Hercules, being unwillingly put into moving waters for the the filming of the movie. As shown in the footage, Hercules clearly is resistant to getting in the water. Someone behind the camera is even heard saying “just gotta throw him in.”

© Twitter
This has left animal-lovers and animal organizations outraged. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was especially outraged. The organization told TMZ of their plans to boycott the film and people buying tickets to see the movie. Universal Pictures decided to cancel the premiere for
A Dog’s Purpose because of the new controversy surrounding the film and to eliminate any possible PETA boycotts.

However, the group that worked on training the dogs for the movie, Birds and Animals Unlimited, is defending their actions. They claim the reason the dog was hesitating to enter to water was because the producers had changed the location. Birds and Animals Unlimited wrote a letter to TMZ explaining that after the footage was filmed, the producers moved Hercules back to the original location where he was trained, where he had no problem jumping into the water there.

Josh Gad, who lends his voice in the movie, showed extreme disapproval of the treatment of Hercules on Twitter. Gad explained, “While I do not know all the details and cannot speak to the level of care and caution that went into this moment (as I was never on set for the making of this film), I am shaken and sad to see any animal put in a situation against its will.”

Dennis Quaid, an actor in A Dog’s Purpose, also has his own doubts about the legitimacy of TMZ’s footage. “I never saw any abuse of any animal. And if there had been, I would have walked,” Quaid stated about his time on the set of the movie. He went on to tell Ellen DeGeneres on her show that he “would not be on a set that had any kind of abuse toward animals ― any animals ― or people” because he doesn’t “think this video tells the whole story.”

This footage has created anger and confusion towards the movie, that could possibly affect the movie’s box office sales. With multiple sides to this story, it seems like we will never know who is at fault in this situation. A Dog’s Purpose release date is January 27.