Strong­heart: Won­der Dog of the Sil­ver Screen is all about the dog, the train­ing, and the movie-mak­ing. It’s also about the strong bond that is devel­oped between ani­mal and train­er. We won­dered if train­ing ani­mals for movies has changed since the 1920s when the Strong­heart movies were filmed.

We con­tact­ed a high­ly respect­ed ani­mal train­er, Tere­sa Ann Miller, who is known inter­na­tion­al­ly as the train­er of Rhett But­ler, who por­trayed Inspec­tor Rex in the series by that name, shown from 1994 to 2004 in Aus­tria and then pro­duced from 2007 to 2015 in Italy, broad­cast in 53 coun­tries world­wide. It’s a police pro­ce­dur­al with a high­ly intel­li­gent dog detec­tive. Tere­sa trained “Rex” for the series until 2012 in Italy.

In 2014, she worked on White God, a movie that fea­tured an unprece­dent­ed 250 dogs! She trained the two dogs that played the main char­ac­ter, “Hagen.”

Tere­sa worked for many years with her father, Karl Miller, who was an ani­mal train­er on count­less movies and tele­vi­sion episodes, includ­ing Mag­num, PI, Stand by Me, and Babe: Pig in the City. Tere­sa’s father trained the St. Bernard who played Cujo in 1983 then lat­er redeemed the breed for Beethoven, a fam­i­ly film about the breed. He was per­son­al­ly thanked by Stephen King for Cujo.

We invite you to read more about Tere­sa Ann Miller in this interview.

Q:    Back in Strongheart’s day, train­er Lar­ry Trim­ble trav­eled to Ger­many to find the right dog to star in these movies. For White God, you found a dog in Ari­zona who then act­ed in Hun­gary. How do you learn about these dogs? Do you have a net­work of contacts?

A:   I searched hun­dreds of dogs to play the part of “Hagen” in White God. It was impor­tant to the direc­tor that “Hagen” stood out in the group of 200 dogs and it was equal­ly impor­tant to me that we had a pho­to dou­ble for “Hagen.” I found Luke and Bod­ie on the Inter­net in need of a home.

Q:    How do you rec­og­nize that an untrained dog will work well in a movie?

A:   Usu­al­ly there is a par­tic­u­lar “breed” or look that pro­duc­tion has in mind. I then search and acquire the appro­pri­ate dog to train for the role.

Q:    Your father trained ani­mals for the movies as you grew up. How has train­ing ani­mals for film work changed in the last 100 years since the Strong­heart movies were made?

A:    I can’t say specif­i­cal­ly how “set eti­quette” has changed since the days of Strong­heart but I can say that it has changed dur­ing my career. The pub­lic is much more aware and they scru­ti­nize what they believe is the behav­ior of the dog. Even if it is script­ed that the dog is inse­cure or skep­ti­cal in its character’s role it is impor­tant that the ani­mal is seen and observed in a com­fort­able and hap­py state so as not to show an unhap­py ani­mal. We spe­cial­ize in “act­ing with ani­mals in a nat­ur­al man­ner.” All of my ani­mals are treat­ed with the utmost respect and with the prop­er train­ing and con­di­tion­ing time to allow for the most nat­ur­al per­for­mance. I am always reward­ing with pos­i­tive rein­force­ment and encour­age­ment of the animal.

Q:    Are ani­mals well-known in the movie indus­try so that a cast­ing direc­tor might say, “We need the dog that Tere­sa Ann Miller trained for White God”? Is there a dif­fer­ent process for cast­ing a dog than a human? Can a dog appear in a sec­ond movie with­out the wor­ry of being recognized?

A:    Inter­est­ing ques­tion, I have been con­tact­ed because of my accom­plish­ments on a cer­tain project and also because of my rep­u­ta­tion as being a very expe­ri­enced set train­er and encour­ag­ing train­er when work­ing with ani­mals. I am cur­rent­ly work­ing with, and sup­ply­ing a dog for, The Art of Rac­ing in the Rain with Milo Ven­timiglia and Aman­da Seyfried (Twen­ti­eth Cen­tu­ry Fox). I was rec­om­mend­ed for this project based on my pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence. I feel that each script cre­ates a new char­ac­ter for each “dog” role.

Q:    Etzel, the dog who played Strong­heart, lived at home with Lar­ry Trim­ble and Jane Murfin. Do you usu­al­ly bring a dog home while it’s in train­ing? Does the dog con­tin­ue to live with you once the movie wraps?

A:    My dogs do live with me before, dur­ing, and after each pro­duc­tion or “job.” I live and work 24 hours a day with my ani­mals and they are my fam­i­ly. It is also pos­si­ble that I work with oth­er people’s ani­mals depend­ing of the project. My ani­mals that I acquire will live out their nat­ur­al lives with me. They’re family.

Q:    What is there about your job that you love?

A:    What I love about my job…the con­nec­tion with the ani­mals, The pride in see­ing the fin­ished project and sto­ry told. The life-chang­ing homes that I can pro­vide an ani­mal in need and a won­der­ful pur­pose I can share with that ani­mal. The lega­cy of con­tin­u­ing my father’s pro­fes­sion and uphold­ing his good name, and the incred­i­ble col­lab­o­ra­tion of work­ing with a film crew and togeth­er accom­plish­ing the sto­ry­telling of a par­tic­u­lar sto­ry and script.

Some­thing Extra from Tere­sa:   Since “White God” the boys, Luke and Bod­ie, have worked on Kir­by Buck­ets, (Dis­ney XD) and recent­ly have a DirecTV com­mer­cial and Mer­cedes Benz Res­cue com­mer­cial as of June 1st. Look­ing for­ward to what the future brings.

Thanks for shar­ing your expe­ri­ences with our read­ers, Tere­sa. The next time we watch TV or a movie for which you’ve coor­di­nat­ed and trained the ani­mals, we’ll think of you behind the scenes!