PETA is calling for a boycott of the family film “A Dog’s Purpose” following a disturbing video post showing the movie’s terrified star dog resisting being forced into rushing water.
The film comes out Jan. 27.
The video was posted by TMZ on Wednesday and is entitled, “Terrified German Shepherd forced into turbulent water,” USA Today confirmed.
The video shows the dog sinking in a pool of water as a crew member can be heard yelling “Cut it!” before those on the set rushed to help the animal.
“New footage shows a terrified dog who is forced into churning water on set,” said Lisa Lange, PETA senior vice president, per USA Today. “At one point, a dog who is in danger of drowning has to be rescued.”
Lange called for a boycott after the video, said to have been shot in 2015, surfaced on Wednesday.
According to TMZ, the video was shot in a pool located outside Winnipeg, Canada.
There were eight outboard motors used to create the turbulent water, which served as “a rushing river” in the scene.
After seeing the video for themselves, Ambling Partners and Universal Pictures told TMZ that “Fostering a safe environment and ensuring the ethical treatment of our animal actors was of the utmost importance to those involved in making this film and we will look into the circumstances surrounding the video.”
Gavin Polone, an animal rights activist and the producer of the film, told Deadline he was “horrified” about what happened in the video.
“The first thing I asked was, ‘Is the dog OK?’ He’s fine. But if I had seen that, I would have stopped it in a minute. People have to be held responsible for this. It was someone’s job to watch out for this kind of thing.”
“This is something I’ve written about before, whether it be circus animals or animals on set,” Polone added. “American Humane are supposed to be there supervising. That’s their job that someone is paid a lot of money to do. Why wasn’t this stopped?”
The director of the film, Lasse Hallstrom, took to Twitter on Wednesday to say, per USA Today, “I did not witness these actions. We were all committed to providing a loving and safe environment for all the animals in the film.”
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