4-4 And...Action!

Julie Tottman: Hi, I'm Julie Tottman. I was the head animal trainer during the Harry Potter films.

During filming, we used several Neapolitan Mastiffs to play the part of Fang. They were taught to do several different behaviors, for example, walk backward, lower their head, and bark on cue.

We'll be training a new Neapolitan Mastiff to show you the training process to get them ready for the film set.

This is Ray. She's a Neapolitan Mastiff. She's a four-year-old female that I've just recently picked up. Um, she came from a breeder. The reason I picked her is because she is a relative to one of the original Fang dogs.

So when we first get the animals, we start by teaching them basic obedience, which is to sit and stay, lie down and stay, stand and stay.

We'll then move on to teaching them to hit a mark. So when the director asks them to come to a certain point on the set, we put down a piece of wood or a tile or whatever we want and ask them to come and stand on it. We can then control exactly where the animal ends up so the director's happy that the animal's in shot.

A quite successful way of teaching them to bark is to put them behind a gate or a barrier. And as we sort of run away excitedly, they really want to get to us. So out of excitement, they'll bark. And then as soon as they do that, we'll run back and then give them the treat. And it soon becomes a game. And that's a really successful and very positive way of teaching them to bark.

So we like to get them out a week or two beforehand to the actual set they're working on. Now, due to building and things, this isn't always possible. So we'll try and find a location that's as similar as we can so the dogs work in that sort of environment.

The great thing about Ray is she absolutely loves it and she's really taken to training so well. Um, we taught her to bark in one session and as you'll see, she, um, really likes doing that, a bit too much. She's really, really taken to it and I think she's having a really good time.