Nana in ‘Peter Pan Live’ Played by Real Dog, Not Costumed Actor

Christopher Walken as Captain Hook is expected to steal the show tonight when “Peter Pan Live” airs on NBC. But one of his fellow actors might very well upstage him.

In previous productions of the musical — including the first televised version in 1955 — Nana, the dog belonging to the Darling children, has been played by an actor in a dog suit. And Peter Pan has been played by a woman

Tonight, as per usual, Peter will be played by a woman, Allison Williams of HBO’s “Girls.” But instead of an actor, and despite it being a live production, executive producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan decided to go with a real dog for the role of Nana.

Making his debut is 20-month-old Bowdie, a rescued gray Poodle mix whose pet parents happen to be theatrical animal trainers Bill and Dorothy Berloni. (Bowdie has a lookalike understudy, just in case.)

When he was 19 years old, Bill trained the original Sandy — a rescued pound pup — for the Broadway production of “Annie.” Coming full circle, he also trained the Sandy for the new “Annie” movie musical.

Bill only uses rescue dogs. “When I was assigned to find the first Sandy, there was no budget for it, and somebody said they have cheap dogs at the pound,” he told Classicalite. “The day I went looking was an eye-opening experience. I had never been to an animal shelter. I never knew that animals were abandoned and abused and had an expiration date when they’d be put to sleep. That day, I made a promise to myself that if I ever got a dog I would get a rescue dog.”

Bowdie is already prepared for his next role. He will appear in a new musical version of the movie “Because of Winn-Dixie,” opening in April 2015 at the Delaware Theatre Company.

As with the live production of “The Sound of Music” last year, a lot of people are expected to “hate watch” the broadcast of “Peter Pan Live” tonight and trash it on social media. Don’t be like Peter Pan and grow up, people! (Those haters may turn into lovers once they see Nana.)

Break a paw, Bowdie!

“Peter Pan Live” airs on NBC tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT (it’s not exactly “live” on the West Coast).

Photo via Twitter

Louisiana Town Officially Drops Controversial Pit Bull and Rottweiler Ban

Thanks to the international backlash from people opposing a proposed ban of all Pit Bulls and Rottweilers in Moreauville, La., city officials decided Monday night to can the ban on the same day it was supposed to go into effect.

“I get to have my best friend back,” O’Hara Owens, whose Pit Bull, Zeus, acts as her unofficial therapy dog, told KALB. Owens suffers from severe neck problems.

After the news spread last month that Moreauville officials had voted to enact the ban — and threatened to destroy pet Pit Bulls and Rottweilers who weren’t relocated by Dec. 1 — more than 348,000 people signed a MoveOn.org petition asking them to repeal the ban.

The petition was started by Owens’ mother, Joanna Armand. She also created the Saving Zeus community page on Facebook, which now has more than 49,500 “likes.”

Moreauville alderman Penn Lemoine told KALB that if the public outcry against the ban was strong enough, it might be dropped. He was true to his word. On Nov. 24, the ban was placed on hold until the special meeting Monday.

Mayor Timmy Lemoine had been hospitalized back in October when the Moreauville town council voted in favor of the ban.

“We got a threat from PETA that said, if we didn’t repeal this ordinance, they had enough money to shut the Village of Moreauville down,” he told KALB. “I wasn’t going to be known as the mayor who shut the Village of Moreauville down because of this.”

Instead of a ban, Lemoine said owners will receive citations if there are problems with their dogs. “It will go to the 12th Judicial Court for the district attorney to decide the fine and what will happen with the owner and the animal,” he told KALB.

Breed-specific legislation (BSL), which includes bans like these, is legal in some states, including Louisiana. But because it is so unfair — not to mention costly to enforce and proven to be ineffective in increasing public safety — it is opposed by President Obama and virtually all major animal welfare organizations: the ASPCA, AVMA, HSUS, etc., etc. For these reasons, the trend has, fortunately, been to repeal useless bans instead of creating them.

“Three families and eight Pit Bull babies have been saved, and I know all three families are forever eternally grateful for all of the world for helping us!” Armand wrote on the Saving Zeus Facebook page yesterday.

“I may be new and I don’t know everything, but I’m not gonna stop and I’m gonna keep helping to raise awareness until this BSL is repealed across the world!”

Photo via Facebook

Bad Santa Allegedly Tells Autistic Girl ‘Pit Bulls Eat People’

Ho ho no. The Santa Claus at a mall in Mission Viejo, Calif., allegedly refused to allow an autistic girl to sit on his lap because of her service dog.

“Those dogs eat people,” he told 7-year-old Abcde (pronounced “Ab-suh-dee”) Santos, whose dog, Pup-Cake, is a Pit Bull.

Santos had waited in line for half an hour. She had planned to turn the tables and ask Santa what he wanted for Christmas. (Hopefully No. 1 on his list is compassion.)

“Autism is accompanied by many sensory issues, included self-harm behaviors and feeling overwhelmed at times by lights and sounds, especially when waiting; Pup-cake the service dog’s job is to intervene in those moments,” Julie Marie Miller, a spokeswoman for the Santos family, said in a statement posted on Facebook Nov. 30.

Santos’ mom “offered to take me completely out of the mall if he would just see her for 30 seconds,” according to a status update on the Pup-Cake the Service Dog Facebook page. “Or if he would use her visit time to simply smile and wink at her as she stood on the other side of the gate from far away.”

“No, because they support those dogs,” Santa allegedly replied.

When Santa was informed that what he was doing was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and against the law, he said he was allergic to dogs.

Although the family offered to remove Pup-cake from the area, “Santa still refused to see the child,” Miller said, due to “what we can only assume is the influence of breed-specific legislation.”

(Alleged witness Aine Walsh has a different version of what occurred. “Actually that’s not what really happened,” she wrote in a comment on the KTLA Facebook page. “The Santa told them he was severely allergic to dogs and asked that they come back when the other Santa was there, and the mother WENT OFF … I spoke to someone and let them know it had nothing to do with the Pit Bull.”)

After the incident, Miller contacted The Noerr Programs, the company that provided the Santa and Elf, as well as Simon Property Management, which owns The Shops at Mission Viejo.

“The entire team at The Noerr Programs sincerely apologizes for any distress caused by this situation, and truly regrets the incident,” CEO Judy Noerr said in a statement Monday.

“We have reached out to the girl’s family, in an effort to extend a private Santa visit with complimentary photos of both the child and her service dog.”

The bad Santa and his helper elf have been fired — and should probably expect to find huge lumps of coal in their stockings come Christmas morning.

Photos via Facebook

I’m Dreaming of a White [House Dog-Bot] Christmas

Since 2011, holiday cards from the first family have featured Bo, their Portuguese Water Dog. Sunny, the Portuguese Water Dog they welcomed in August 2013, was also included last year.

This year, for the first time in U.S. history, the White House is sending out what it’s calling an “interactive” card — a 50-second video of the president and first lady wishing everyone happy holidays. No Bo. No Sunny.

But this doesn’t mean the first dogs are being excluded. No, also for the first time ever this year, the White House holiday decor will include two robot dogs modeled after Bo and Sunny. (Yes, Virginia, there was a mechanical Bo last year. Unfortunately, its tail got caught in the motor and started to smolder. Fortunately, it happened at the end of the holiday season.)

Three months ago, Cornell University Ph.D. candidate Stephanie Santoso was appointed as the White House’s first-ever senior adviser for its Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), helping it explore how Maker culture can help stimulate the economy.

An added perk, as the Washington Post noted, is that “Santoso knows how to design a dog robot.”

The OSTP’s Santoso, digital media senior advisor Mark DeLoura and intern Laura Gerhardt created the Bo dog-bot. During a photo session last month, an early chicken-wire version of robot Bo “swiveled its head back and forth about once a second,” the Washington Post reported, and OTSP experts “seemed pleased with the performance.”

The Sunny dog-bot was created by Presidential Innovation fellows Bosco So and David Naffis. According to the Washington Post, the Sunny dog-bot’s eyes contain infrared motion sensors that will make it turn toward someone approaching it.

To create the illusion of fur, White House chief floral designer Laura Dowling and her staff wrapped a mile of black ribbon around the dog-bots’ wire frames.

“I don’t think there’s a high-tech way of making that,” Dowling told the Washington Post.

Next year, the design teams hope to create more advanced dog-bots that can jump and have movable paws. As for barking, the teams decided against it, concerned that the dog-bots’ vocalizing might scare children.

Bo and Sunny will also be featured on “lost” ornaments hidden throughout the White House that visiting children will be asked to find. The ornaments show the dogs “putting on their snow boots, dreaming of treats, building a snowman, singing holiday songs and hanging stockings on the mantel,” according to the White House website.

The official 2014 holiday theme will be unveiled to the media tomorrow. The Washington Post reports that along with the dog-bots, the high-tech decor will include infrared motion sensors and crowd-sourced lighting patterns. Also on display will be the winners of the first-ever 3-D Printed Ornament Challenge.

The White House website notes that decorations will also honor members of the Armed Forces and their families. A Christmas tree in the East Wing will be decorated with gold star ornaments in honor of those who made gave their lives for their country.

Want to see the dog-bots in person? Click here for information about taking a White House tour.

Photo credit: Pete Souza (that’s the real Bo and Sunny, not the dog-bots)

Do Dogs Try to Understand What We Tell Them? New Study Says Yes

When you talk to your dog, does she ever tilt her head back and forth in the cutest possible way, looking like she’s trying to figure out what you’re telling her?

That may be just what she’s doing, according to a new study by the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex, published in the Nov. 26 issue of the journal Current Biology.

The researchers discovered that dogs process human speech in the same way as we humans process each other’s speech — by using different hemispheres of the brain.

“Humans mainly use the left hemisphere of their brain to process the verbal content of speech and the right hemisphere to process the characteristics of the voice — whether it’s familiar, male or female — and its emotional content,” doctoral candidate Victoria Ratcliffe (in the photo), who conducted the research with Dr. David Reby, said in a press release.

“Previous studies have shown that other mammals also have hemispheric biases when processing their own species’ vocalizations, but no one had ever looked at whether biases existed in domesticated animals in response to the different components of human speech.”

In the study, more than 250 dogs were tested to see how they responded to spoken commands. Participants included dogs from the the local RSPCA as well as dog walkers’ clients. Each dog heard human speech through speakers that were placed on their left and right sides. (The right ear sends information to the left side of the brain, and vice versa.)

The dogs were more likely to turn to the right when the speech they heard was meaningful (such as the command, “Come on then”), and also when voice features such as gender or intonation were reduced or removed.

However, if the speech they heard was in a foreign language or if the phonemes (sounds that distinguish one word from another) had been scrambled — for example, they heard “Thon om ken” instead of “Come on then” — the dogs were more likely to turn to the left.

“Although we cannot say to what extent they understand the complexity of the verbal content, our study does suggest that dogs pay attention to this information in human speech and that they perceive its content in a way that broadly parallels human perception,” Ratcliffe said.

Dr. Reby said the researchers would like to investigate whether wild animals also display similar left brain/right brain speech processing, or if it’s something unique to dogs, “because they have been selected to respond to human verbal commands during domestication.”

He said such a study “would advance our understanding of the evolution of speech perception in humans by revealing whether hemispheric specializations for processing its different communicative components are uniquely human or instead shared with other mammals.”

Photo via University of Sussex

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