It's amazing what the canine stars of "102 Dalmatians" will do for a couple of cookies.
Chase scenes? No problem. Gut-wrenching emotion? These pros can handle that, too.
As for death-defying stunts, the film's animal coordinator, Gary Gero, thought finding a puppy willing to wear a harness and be whisked into the air by a bunch of balloons would be difficult. He "auditioned" several of the film's 285 puppies for that scene, and they all did just fine.
"They didn't care at all, not the flying, the crane, the cable, the harness. Just pay them with a few cookies and they'll do it."
Still, it was the animals, not the human stars (Glenn Close reprises the wonderfully wicked Cruella De Vil), who controlled the filming schedule of the new Disney movie.
"You can't get around a puppy's wake-sleep schedule. They're up for three to four hours, then they sleep an hour. They don't care what is going on around them," Gero explained during an interview at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan, where Freckles and Maisie — who play the lead Dalmatians Dipstick and Dottie — were sprawled across a couch.
Gero and his team of trainers had worked on the 1996 live-action "101 Dalmatians," but the sequel was much more ambitious, he said.
It has five lead dog characters, a bird who thinks he's a Rottweiler, three lead puppy characters, and 97 other puppy roles. Filling those roles and the canine "extras" required 55 adult dogs, six macaws — and 285 puppies. Plus 43 people in the animal department.
Three scenes feature computer-generated animals because of safety concerns — for instance, a scene in which the bird Waddlesworth picks up a puppy in his beak, flies over train tracks and tumbles into a baggage car.
Casting Oddball, a Dalmatian puppy with no spots, was also a challenge.
"God didn't make any all-white Dalmatian puppies at that age for us," Gero said. Dalmatians are born without spots, but the puppies appearing in the movie are 8 to 10 weeks old, and by that age, spots have appeared.
So Oddball was played by puppies with spots, and it took 63 people to remove the spots digitally.
Close said she took a particular liking to one of the Oddball puppies, but their budding friendship ended when she had to scream while the puppy was in her path.
"It's tricky playing Cruella because they instinctively hate her," Close said.
Off screen, Close is an animal lover who brings her four dogs — including a golden retriever mix and a papillon — with her on location whenever possible.
"I decided if we're going to have this sort of life when I travel so often, we're going to keep the home team together as much as possible, and that means the four-legged members as much as the two-legged members."
Gero, 54, lives in Los Angeles with his own "big, brown, shaggy, drooly dogs," one of whom starred on the television sitcom "Empty Nest."
An animal trainer has to get an early start on a film starring animals, he said. It takes at least one month to review the script, another month to acquire the animals and four more months to train them before shooting can begin.
Maisie and Freckles were veterans from "101 Dalmatians." For the puppies, Gero solicited breeders who already had Dalmatian litters. Many of the puppies had already been promised to families, and they were given to those homes after three weeks of training and three weeks of work.
Gero stressed that no dog was bred just for the movie. A representative from the American Humane Association was on the set, and everything — from lights to sets — was disinfected to protect the dogs from diseases.
The key to training puppies is to make it fun, Gero said. "Puppies are all food- and play-oriented. They have an innate intelligence to learn patterns."
But getting them to repeat the same stunt again and again required trainers to reach deep in their bags of treats.
"You start with a biscuit, then go to cheese and top sirloin."
Animal rights activists have protested outside Disney's studios in Burbank, Calif., urging the company to add a disclaimer to the film warning potential owners about the breed's personality. They worry that movie-goers charmed by the cute puppies will buy a Dalmatian without thinking it through.
"Dalmatians are very high energy, which works for us," Gero said. "On the other hand, it makes them not an ideal dog to have as a pet unless you have several hours a day to run with them."
Disney spokeswoman Andrea Marozas said the studio has partnerships with the Dalmatian Club of America and the American Humane Association to promote proper pet selection, care and ownership.
Said Close: "Everything cute grows up. It's like having a child, and you have to be responsible."