(Host) Seeing the antics of a few new celebrities has commentator Mary
McCallum thinking about their long road to stardom and how their good
fortune can be a model for saving lives.
(McCallum) In mid
December I became star struck by a couple of new actors. Without benefit
of singing, dancing or acting lessons, they had been liberated from
uncertain lives behind bars and given on-the-job training that led them
to stardom. No, this was not a prison spinoff of American Idol. What set
these celebs apart from their acting peers were their four legs, hairy
bodies and ability to sniff out the snacks. Mutts.
This holiday
season I attended Northern Stage’s highly acclaimed production of Annie
at the Briggs Opera House. When the wiry haired pooch with soulful eyes
named Sandy nosed her way over to the feisty orphan to make friends, a
collective "oooh" rippled through the audience. From that moment, no
matter how magnificently the humans sang and danced their hearts out,
whenever Sandy was onstage she owned it.
A refugee from a life
that included time in two shelters and a stint at a prison dog training
program, Sandy escaped euthanasia when famed animal trainer William
Berloni adopted her at the eleventh hour. Berloni has a long list of
credits for animals he trained for Broadway and film, and this scruffy
stray eventually became the Sandy that ambled across the stage in the
Vermont production of Annie.
Another canine Cinderella story
surfaced from the film Beginners, in which award-winning actors are
upstaged by an ironic Jack Russell named Arthur. Plucked from a shelter
by another gifted animal trainer, the tiny thespian plays a pivotal role
in a movie about love, loss and the struggle to accept who we really
are. This onscreen canine is so engaging that I predict a run for Jack
Russells across America by folks eager for the breed du jour.
But
as an owner of a rescued pooch myself, I would offer that not all dogs
are so easily lured by treats into performing what may help them ascend
the ladder to stardom. While I would love my unkempt dustmop of a dog to
act, fetch, and run through agility tunnels at my command, she is,
after all, a terrier.
I imagine thought bubbles above her fuzzy head that declare, "Shake? Are
you kidding? Real dogs don’t shake hands. We don’t even have hands. Get
real, lady." Ah, the single-minded terrier. While charming, they don’t
do anything they don’t want to.
But the remarkable thing that my
dog has in common with Sandy and Arthur is that she too was a shelter
dog, found on the street, lost and starving. And while I have rescued
only one dog, I feel a kinship with Berloni, who finds his talent pool
of future Sandys and Wizard of Oz Totos entirely in animal shelters.
Almost
seven million companion animals enter shelters nationwide each year,
and sixty percent of dogs are euthanized. Berloni says that he has no
difficulty finding the dogs he needs for his theater work through
shelters because there are just so many to choose from.
The good
news is that with only a few of the lucky ones making it big, word gets
out that there are gems just waiting to be discovered – and saved.