Nature
PUBLISHED
2
Ask any pet owner, we’ve all experienced it. That creepy moment your pet starts staring intently at something in the room you can’t see. What if there was more to it than them just being weird little guys? What if, say, they were picking up on supernatural forces?
That’s the story that unfolds in Good Boy, a 2025 film about a dog named Indy who must fight against forces unseen to protect his human. The leading pooch was described as “One of the most emotive actors of his generation – regardless of species,” by IndieWire.
So good was his portrayal, in fact, that he made history as the first dog to ever be awarded a major Hollywood award. He won the Astra for Best Performance in a Horror or Thriller. A big day for dogs, even if it was perhaps somewhat surprising for the runner-up humans, including Ethan Hawke and Alison Brie.
So, who is this Hollywood hunk that’s making history? And how exactly does one get a dog to act in a movie?
Indy the dog (yes, the real pup’s name is the same as its character’s) is a Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever. He lives with the film’s director Ben Leonberg, who told SAG Indie that he and producer wife Kari Fischer had no plans to make him a star when they became a family in 2017.
“He never needed hair and makeup over the three years of production, and doesn’t seem to have aged a wink,” said Leonberg. “We got him just to be our friend and companion, and he certainly is that. But fortunately, he’s also the kind of dog that is very smart and active and loves to have a job, which were important alchemical elements in actually pulling this off.”
“Tollers”, as they’re known, were bred to work closely with human hunters by luring in waterfowl. All dogs have unique personalities, but this history explains why the breed shares some characteristics such as being highly intelligent and easy to train – desirable traits in an actor, I’d wager most directors would say.
However, as a 2022 study concluded, breed stereotypes can be a poor predictor of individual behavior. Biddability – the ability to follow human directions – was found to be the most heritable by breed, but factors like environment and training can have a big influence on an individual animal.
Training is certainly an important consideration for animal actors, as motion capture specialist Csaba Kővári told IFLScience.
“It is important to emphasize that when working with animals, we work with professional trainers who prepare the animals for the shoot in advance,” said Kővári, who was not involved in the filming of Good Boy. “During the preparation phase of any project, the animals can be trained for any time between two to three months, during which time they get used to moving naturally despite the motion capture markers being attached to their body. The timing of the shoots may change, so the animals need regular, consistent training so they remember the movements they are practicing.”
And as for taking verbal instructions? We know dogs can understand nouns and link words with objects, and the BARKS lab is even exploring if they could be taught to talk with language.
Get working on those lines, Indy. You could soon have some canine competition.
