Posts tagged "ShelterDogs"

For the past three years, Universal Studios Hollywood theme park has celebrated Grinchmas, a special event featuring Dr. Seuss' classic Christmas characters, which includes snow to play in, Whoville celebrations, and even celebrity readings from the likes of Brandy and Stephen Moyer. This year, Grinchmas, which lasts through Jan. 2, opens with an event sure to make even the grinchiest pet lover's heart grow three sizes.

The park will host pet adoption fairs on Dec. 11 and 12, from noon to 4 p.m., with animals provided by the Amanda Foundation and the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services. Presiding over the festivities is Max the Dog, everyone's favorite Seuss canine. We spoke to Eliot Sekuler, vice president of PR Universal Studios Hollywood, about this weekend's Max to the Rescue: Have a Heart pet adoption fairs.

What happens on Grinchmas?
We have events taking place on the original sets where the [Grinch movie] was filmed, a very large Whoville Christmas tree [that] we light several times a day, along with a Whoville playlet. Max the Dog is around the park, along with Whoville characters singing and performing.

How were the dogs playing Max discovered?
Trainers from Birds and Animals, the company that trains animals for us, go to shelters and look for dogs that are spirited. For many people they might be too hyper, but that's a good quality for a trainable dog.

Unless you're Cruella de Vil, you are guaranteed to love the new "101 Dalmatians" musical -- especially since all of the animal actors are shelter rescues.

"The script for the musical is based on the original 1956 book by Dodie Smith in which the story is told from the dogs' perspectives," the show's producer, Lee Marshall, tells Paw Nation. "Nothing in the musical is related to any of the motion pictures," he says, referring to the 1961 animated Walt Disney movie and the 1996 live-action film starring Glenn Close.

To illustrate the world as the dogs see it, all the human actors will be on 15-inch stilts surrounded by an extra-tall set scaled to show a dog's eye view of the world. The lead dog roles of Pongo and Missus Perdita -- whose Dalmatian puppies are stolen by the evil Cruella de Vil -- will be played by human actors dressed in fashionably spotted suits, and child actors will play the puppies.

But Marshall sprinkles each performance with real Dalmatians. Fifteen fortunate pups bound on the stage at the end of Act 1 and during the show's finale, performing choreographed movements set to music written by Dennis DeYoung, founding member of the legendary band Styx.

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