When you hear dogs speak fluent English, you’ve either eaten too many Cocoa Puffs or you’re watching “Good Boy!”
In the film, 12-year-old Owen Baker (Liam Aiken) walks his neighbors’ dogs to prove that he’s responsible enough to get his own.
The dog Owen does get – Hubble – turns out to be from outer space. From the dog star Sirius, no less. (Seriously.)
While Liam and “Saturday Night Live” stars Molly Shannon and Kevin Nealon get top billing, it’s the furry four-legged guys who provide most of the goofy entertainment.
Not only that – but all the “Good Boy!” dogs are real.
Well, mostly.
“We didn’t use any [computer generated] dogs – only their mouths and sometimes their eye movements,” says Bonnie Judd, the film’s animal trainer.
She says Lisa Henson – one of “Good Boy!” ‘s producers and the daughter of Muppets’ creator Jim Henson – didn’t want to use puppets in place of the real thing, and neither did she.
“I wanted people to see what the possibilities are with their pets,” Judd says. “Sometimes we’re restricted only by not knowing what they can do.”
Turns out, dogs can do plenty – but some dogs are better at some things then others. Though five dogs are featured in the film, there were never any fewer than 11 dogs on the set at any time.
For Hubble, the talkative border terrier, the filmmakers used three dogs: Flynn was the “face dog,” used in close-ups; Mallie was used in scenes with lots of running and jumping, and Dafford performed the “slow dying” scene – a dramatic version of “playing dead.”
With so many dogs on the set, each with its own trainer, things got pretty chaotic, particularly during a scene in which the dogs pretended to be high on laughing gas.
After the director yelled cut, the dogs, their trainers and the kids finally quieted down. “Wow,” Molly Shannon said. “They just don’t prepare you for this in acting school.”
Maybe not. But there was no question who the film’s favorites were.
“Kevin Nealon was absolutely in love with the dogs,” Judd says. “I think we had the most popular trailer on the set!”