At the end of 2016, a trailer featuring the life of dogs was released to the public. This movie titled, A Dog’s Purpose, is about the role that dogs play in our lives. In the movie, we follow the multiple lives that a dog has and we learn, along with him, the unbreakable bond between humans and dogs. Recently, a video surfaced showing a trainer forcefully leading a frightened German Shepard into a fast moving current. This video has caused boycotting against the film and raised awareness about animals in the film industry.

At the beginning, this film received a lot of hype. Animal lovers were captivated by the plot of the movie and couldn’t wait to see it. As an avid dog lover myself, I couldn’t wait for the movie to be released. The film was scheduled to be released on January 27, but earlier in the month, a video surfaced of a dog being forced into a rushing body of water. The original source comes from TMZ, and they told the public to boycott the movie for animal abuse. In the video, we see a German Shepard obviously afraid to get into the water. The trainer continuously tries to ease the dog in, until the dog is dropped into the water. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have called for a complete boycott of the movie. PETA told the directors of the movie to never use animals in any of their films again. Also, due to the emergence of this video, the premiere of A Dog’s Purpose has been canceled, and the American Humane Society is investigating the matter (foxnews.com). 

As a result of this video, the premiere of A Dog's Purpose has been cancelled 🐶 #boycottadogspurpose pic.twitter.com/XDwpsV3t2H

— Amplify (@thisisamplify) January 21, 2017

Actors in the film have spoken out about this video that has surfaced. Josh Gad, an actor who voices a dog in the film tweeted that he “[hopes] people find the full story about what happened on set and see this love letter to dogs.” He continues to say that he didn’t know that this was taking place during the filming of the movie. Gavin Polone, the producer of the movie offers another point of view to the situation. Like many, he finds it suspicious that this video was edited and given to TMZ near the release date of the film. Polone is also a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, and he used his platform there to tell the audience the truth. He says that the video is edited to make it look bad, and the position of the dog was different from what he was used to. Polone acknowledges how this was wrong and criticized the trainer and representative for not helping the dog earlier.

His full column can be found here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gavin-polone-a-dogs-purpose-outcry-what-happened-whos-blame-967160

After the movie was released on January 27, nationwide protests were held against it at theaters by PETA. Many people still chose to see the movie, while others joined the protests.

If you are, however, interested in seeing the movie, local movie theaters, AMC South Bay, AMC Del Amo, Cinemark Carson, and ArcLights Cinema, will be showing the movie. If you choose to watch the film, make sure to tell us what you thought about it in the comments below!