A German Shepherd was allegedly forced into a rushing water to shoot a scene for the upcoming film “A Dog’s Purpose.”
In a perturbing footage obtained by TMZ on Wednesday, the frightened canine is seen clinging to the side of a fizzy makeshift pool when a dog trainer tries to detach the dog to the streaming water.
A man can be heard yelling at the trainer to “toss” the pooch instead. “Don’t worry. It’s warm water at least,” the man said. “He ain’t gonna calm down until he goes in the water.”
“You just got to throw him in,” the person added.
One time, the dog’s paws touched the water’s surface, but it sensed that the water was cold and climbed back to the pool’s ledge. In the second video obtained by the news site, the canine was filmed struggling to keep afloat in the turbulent pool. The film crew went berserk when the dog suddenly sunk under the water. Dog trainers rushed to the scene and the director cut it.
The scene was shot in a pool outside Winnipeg, Canada, in November 2015, and the German Shepherd was one of the five dogs used in the movie. After the video broke out, a representative of the American Humane Association guarding the filming of the scene was suspended, TMZ reported.
“A Dog’s Purpose” is based on a novel by W. Bruce Cameron, written in 2010. It revolves around the bubbly lives of a dog that reincarnated in different dog forms and forged eternal friendships with his past owners.
The film is slated to initially screen in theaters on Jan. 27. Gianna Francesca Catolico