Wolfdogs in movies - "Le Pacte des Loups"

[z Peronówki]

Today, the Saarloos' of Christopher are stars, 'Le Pacte des Loups', 'Les visiteurs 2', 'Le Petit Poucet' and the ads of the Nicolas Hulot foundation. And yet training Saarloos to work is a difficult task. Shy, stubborn and scared, the Saarloos has inherited from the wolf an atavistic fear of man. That which Christopher asks of them is almost impossible!

Hmmmm.....it was always a misery for me.... So I have a question....

OK, to use Saarloos Wolfdogs in "Le Pacte des Loups" was a technical mistake because everyone who saw an European Wolf will know dogs play in the movie and not wolves. It is really hard to be misleaded in this case - Saarloos are simply too different. What was the reason? Were there not enough Czechoslovakian Wolfdogs in France which can become wolves for movie shots? I don't think so...

But now my question: why people use shy Wolfdogs for movies? Why they waste their money (and time)? We had here also very bad experiences with some wolfdogs - they were so shy that shoots for a film were almost not possible (or only part of the work was done). Is it not better to use REAL wolves? I know some packs which can be used and the wolves are really not more "shy, stubborn and scared" than Saarloos described by Christopher. And don't forget: wolves look like...REAL wolves...

But it is so easy: for all easy work (walking, jumping, running) it is much better to use real wolves. They look great and they are able to do all this things shy Wolfdogs are also able to do. So why to use substitution if you can use original?
On the other hand there are many applications where you can't use (or it is very hard) real wolves: work with children & people, showing agression, work with "real" dogs and more complicated scenes which require more cooperation between wolfdog and owner. For such work wolves (and also shy wolfdogs) are simply useless. It is the field for not shy, easy to train Wolfdogs (Czechoslovakian Wolfdogs(?)).

We checked it few weeks before during the film shoots for BBC. The wolves were not able to make about 1/3 of the scenes they had to do. Sometimes it was really funny because they were not able to do things which seem to be really easy but they done parts which were pretty complicated... Anyway the last 1/3 of the shots was possible to do with trained Czechoslovakian Wolfdogs. But not with shy and affraid of people....

Why so many people like to make their life harder?

[Rona]

Originally Posted by Margo

Why so many people like to make their life harder?

Out of ignorance and lack of information?

[Mirkawolf]

Because people like Christopher make such an advertising to CSW´s, that the film makers will better risk shooting with real wolves, or bother with shy Saarlooses, than to work with "man killers"

But hey, there was Patrick Cools filming with Branca the Movie star! And it was CSW!

Mirka