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Rising dog star appears in ‘Black Panther; movies, TV
By Layne Saliba
FCN regional staff
Imagine a dog in the middle
of a war. He’s scraggly with a
pretty thin build. He’s dirty.
Army soldiers are all around
him searching for the Taliban.
That’s what Gru’s first day
on the job was like. Except it
wasn’t real; it was on a movie
set. :
Things are pretty much the
same now for the four-legged,
sport-breed dog who lives in
Gainesville. Appearing primari
ly as a stray without a home,
he’s been in films like Marvel’s
“Black Panther” and TV shows
like Netflix’s “Ozark.”
“He’s an amazing athlete,
which is comical because all of
his movie parts are these piti
ful, stray dog parts,” said Jen
Dean, Gru’s owner and a pro
fessional dog trainer. “He looks
like he’s a starving, stray dog.
But he’s not. He’s actually a
super athlete.”
Greg Tresan, owner of
Animal Casting Atlanta, found
Gru after another dog’s owner
mentioned him. The casting
agency needed a dog that could
pass as a stray and because of
Gru’s mixed breed of Jack
Russell terrier, border terrier,
Staffordshire bull terrier, border
collie and whippet, he fit the
part perfectly.
But not every dog is cut out
for show business.
“No dog is absolutely per
fect,” said Tresan, who has pro
vided animals for movies and
TV shows like the new “Game
Night,” “The Hunger Games”
and “Stranger Things.” “Every
dog does have some kind of
star quality. It’s just whether or
not all the other things that go
along with it make it accessi
ble.”
And for Gru, those things
were accessible because of his
training and obedience. So he
was chosen for the part, but not
before he got a little makeup.
Dean said they usually use a
mix of color dust and petro
leum jelly to make his hair look
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Scott Rogers FCN regional staff]
Jen Dean’s dog Gru has been featured on television shows like Netflix’s Ozarks and the
Black Panther film. So far the dog’s roles have been primarily as a stray pooch without a
home.
“gnarly” and make sure he
passes as a stray.
“We go home and he gets
several baths to get it off,”
Dean said. “But he still looks a
little dingy for another week.”
She said Gru is pretty good at
acting. She’s been impressed
with how quickly he’s picked
Presented By:
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up on some things he’s asked to
do, especially when she can’t
control the atmosphere on set
and it isn’t what she expected.
“I still get a little nervous
when I go because you never
really know exactly what they
want and what the situation is,”
Dean said. “They might have
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told you generally what they
want, but then they want you to
be 40 feet away, or there’s a
crowd carrying suitcases
between you and your dog.”
A lot of the time it’s simply a
matter of Gru going to a specif
ic spot on set, looking at some
thing or someone and barking
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or growling. Dean said filming
usually takes about one day, so
Gru has to get those things
done quickly, which he doesn’t
“have a problem with. Most
recently he-had to bark, grows:
and snap during -3%’;?_}
movie she wasn’t allowed ot
mention. { oy
It took him a little bit. {0
understand it all because thexe:
were a lot of peoplé wallisg:
around in the backgrou -,g; 3
the scene. But Dean said Duge:
Gru figured it out, hésxas
to do it perfectly over and over
again.
Sometimes, the camera
angles don’t allow Dean to get
close enough to Gru during the
scene, so she has to teach
someone who is actually in the
scene to give him his cue. In
“Black Panther,” someone in a
tree cued him to look up. In
“Ozark,” an actor sitting next to
Gru gave him the cue. But even
when all of that works out, it’s
still not an ideal situation
sometimes. :
+ “It’s a little hard training situ
ation because you can’t reward
right away all the time because
the scene is still rolling,” Dean
said.
There’s a rule on set that no
one is allowed to pet animals
without permission. Dean has
never had a problem with that,
but that doesn’t mean actors
don’t still enjoy being around
Gru. Dean said everyone on set
always loves him, even if she
and he are only there for a short
time.
And just like any of the other
actors there, Gru has to prac
tice. He’s always training, and
whether it’s for competitions
where he does tricks with
Frisbees or simply barking at
different men, it never stops.
“I still do prep work for
every job he gets, because
they’ve all been a little differ
ent,” Dean said. “Because you
just kind of don’t know what
they want until you get there.
So thankfully he likes to train
and he’ll kind of figure it out
while we’re there too.”