An American Humane Certified Safety Representative visited the Snow Buddies set on the first day of filming. Fifteen Golden Retriever puppies were on set and fifteen other were being treated by a local veterinarian, and their illnesses were eventually diagnosed as Giardia and Coccidia. On request from the representative the remaining puppies on set received additional veterinary checks. Twenty-five of the puppies were from an American breeder and five were from a Canadian breeder. It was discovered that the puppies were approximately 8 weeks old, which lead to the belief that the puppies were only 6 weeks old when they were brought by the trainer to the movie set. Per the USDA it was at the time illegal to transport puppies under the age of 8 weeks.
After the removal of all 30 puppies, 28 older Golden Retriever puppies were brought in to continue filming. All of the 28 older puppies were exposed to parvovirus. Five of the puppies died, and up to six others fell ill after exposure to the virus.
As a result, the film was not permitted to use the "No animals were harmed..." disclaimer and received an "Unacceptable" marking from the American Humane Association.
discovered that the lemming scene was actually filmed at the Bow River near Canmore, Alberta, and further that the same small group of lemmings was transported to the location, jostled on turntables, and repeatedly shoved off a cliff to imply mass suicide.
the same small group of lemmings was transported to the location, jostled on turntables, and repeatedly shoved off a cliff to imply mass suicide
That Wikipedia quote implies it wasn't deadly, but checking the end line citations, their reference calls it a "mass animal killing made to look like natural suicide" and makes no mention of using the same group multiple times.
What's the conventional wisdom as to why this is so bad, but eating meat basically gets a pass? Like, meat offers sustenance, yes, but it's by no means required. So basically, humans eat meat because it tastes really good --- it's great "culinary entertainment."
This is a different kind of entertainment, but it's deeply offensive to many folks. I'm not trying to be a dick about it, just curious why this is seen as such a sin.
Is it that these animals weren't "supposed" to be killed? Would a movie about a beef cow who ends up getting slaughtered, both onscreen and IRL, be seen as better? Worse?
1.the chasm between the intended discourse of the film (feelgood movie with puppies going on adventures) and the alleged means to film it, feels particularly cynical and dishonest
2.the fact that dogs are companions -they have co-evolved next to humans for about 15 thousand years and hold a special place, contrary to animals typically consumed for their flesh
Thanks for the thoughtful response! 1) makes a lot of sense, and 2) makes a lot of "emotional sense" to me (as opposed to "intellectual sense," I guess).
Yes, that's the cognitive dissonance of carnism. "How could torturing one animal possibly be the same as torturing another? We have different categories for torturing!!!!" smh.
Broadly, people are not ok with animals being mistreated. An animal that is raised in safe, comfortable conditions and then killed painlessly is not mistreated by the standards of many people.
Abusing a puppy and kitten to make a film is absolutely mistreatment, hence the different reaction.
I'm not trying to be a dick about it
Doubt. "Just asking questions" is so often a deliberate dick move.
Parvovirus is a puppy owners worst nightmare. It's kind of puppy ebola but super contagious and high mortality rate.
Typically puppy owners never accept a puppy younger than 8 weeks without their first vaccination. And don't let them go out in places exposed to other unknown dogs until after the second vaccination at 16 weeks. So those early weeks should be spent with other vaccinated puppies to socialise them. And if you are going out, carry them or put them in a cart, or take them places you know no sick dogs have been within a year.
Yet another reason why raising puppies is so much harder than people think.
Yeah, parvo specifically attacks multiplying cells. It’s not super bad for fully grown dogs, which only multiply cells to maintain a baseline. But for puppies that are actively growing, it basically causes them to fall apart at the seams. Their bone marrow and intestinal lining basically turns to mush, since they’re almost entirely made of multiplying cells.
Dutch behavioral biologist Maarten 't Hart, hired by Herzog for his expertise with laboratory rats, revealed that, after witnessing the inhumane way in which the rats were treated, he no longer wished to cooperate. Apart from traveling conditions that were so poor that the rats, imported from Hungary, had started to eat each other upon arrival in the Netherlands, Herzog insisted the plain white rats be dyed gray. To do so, according to 't Hart, the cages containing the rats needed to be submerged in boiling water for several seconds, causing another half of them to die. The surviving rats proceeded to lick themselves clean of the dye immediately, as 't Hart had predicted they would.
I previously kinda liked Hertzog (he was amusing to listen to if nothing else), not any more.
How do you boil 11,000 rats alive and then go on and make 10 minute long thinkpieces about the profound sadness of the death of a single penguin that leaves its flock? What a fucking masturbatory asshat.
Hoooooly shit I knew productions with animals were usually darker than they seem but Snow Buddies???? Snow Buddies was built on the back of mass puppy casualty???
I used to love that movie until one night as a small child, something just snapped in me and I ran into my mom's room bawling my eyes out. I couldn't explain why at that age, but the movie felt so wrong from that point forward.
I hate all animal cruelty but shit against cats makes me the angriest. What the fuck is wrong with people? These creatures love and trust us and we treat them in terrible ways.
I can’t even imagine the kind of person you have to be to actually let this movie get published about a bunch of cute little puppy dogs if you had the power to stop it and you knew what happened.
WTF?! Man I love Air Bud franchise but I never saw Snow Buddies. I was thinking of doing a re-watch and see all the Air Bud movies I haven't seen yet. But after seeing this news I'm not so sure....
There are 23 movies in the Air Bud cinematic universe. Everyone always talks about the first Air Bud. The basketball one. The dog does a trick and boops the basketball into the hoop. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. If I'm on the losing team to that, I can applaud that. That's fine, whatever, I'd hurt my nose doing that. Cool. The rest of the team played well, too.
Now imagine being a kid on a sports team six years later. You arrive to your beach volleyball court and see you're playing against a dog. You might think, woah, the dog is just gonna boop the ball with his nose, right? Cool fucking trick, he's old as shit and has no new ones. Wrong. In Air Bud: Spikes Back, the fifth Air Bud movie, the eponymous Air Bud jumps up to the net and spikes a ball down on the opposing team. If I'm on the losing team to that, I fucking quit volleyball forever. There's no going back. Your dad doesn't ask how the game was, he saw the dog spike that shit on you on ESPN. What were you supposed to do? My fucking bad, our libero is a piece of shit who can't dig it up from a FUCKING DOG??? Where the FUCK is our middle blocker??? Which one of you assholes let's the dog go unmarked after that??? Slam the fucking ball into him, holy shit! No wonder we lost, they were too busy laughing their asses off while we floundered to get the ball over the net! Holy fucking shit, Andre, if you set the ball up so the FUCKING DOG GETS A CHANCE TO BLOCK ME WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU THE SETTER?!? No way, there is NO WAY anyone plays volleyball on that team again. Half that team kills themselves from the ridicule after that. The other half moves across the country and changes their names and faces. That dog ruins their lives. All to win a volleyball game.