"Lassie" extras forced to fight?

[Horse Chestnut]

I was discussing the new British film Lassie with a friend at work, when she asked me "Well, you heard about the big scandal about the old Lassie shows, didn't you?"

According to her, dogs resembling the main Lassie were rescued from pounds around California. They then were used to stage the fight scenes where Lassie might be battling a bear or cougar. Apparently this was covered up for many years.

Now I do have my doubts about this, because there is supposed to be an AHA representative on the set at all times. She was also unclear whether Rudd Weatherwax was handling these dogs, or if the fights were filmed in other studios without his knowledge.

I myself had never even heard this story, and I've read my share of books about Hollywood and animal training in the movies. Has anyone else heard this story?

According to her, dogs resembling the main Lassie were rescued from pounds around California. They then were used to stage the fight scenes where Lassie might be battling a bear or cougar. Apparently this was covered up for many years.

I heard the same about the child actors. (From orphanages rather than pounds obviously)

[Tom o' Bedlam]

Never heard of this before, but I don't buy it. It sounds to me like another UL about something beloved and considered wholesome containing some terrible, sinister element that's kept from the public eye, like the fate of Steve Burns from Blue's Clues.

When I first read the tittle of the thread, I thought that it was referring to secret dogfighting rings that Lassie stand-ins were subjected to during the filming of the show.

Doesn't the actual meaning make a little sense, though? I imagine it like a stunt dog. Not that they'd actually fight, as was inferred, but that they would do the fight scene.

[Spamamander]

I recall reading a book by one of the people who worked in the animal training industry during the time frame that the Lassie shows were produced. I can't for the life of me remember the name of it, but the woman who wrote it worked with a lot of the 'wild' animals for commercials and shows... like the cougar in the old Mercury commercials, the "tiger in your tank" promos, and some of the "fight scenes" with bears and cougars on the Lassie program. She described Rudd Weatherwax as adoring his dogs, though at any given time there were several "Lassie" dogs in training. There was the "main" dog, used in most of the shots, who was the official "Lassie". Then there were several look-a-likes who each had their own specialty. One dog might be best at feigning growling and snarling for a fight, another might be more acrobatic, another might be good at tricks that required low crawling, etc. Not only did it have dogs do the thing they were best at, no one dog had to do all the work.

The "fight" scenes seemed to be a good part of the time actually some rather rough-and-tumble play time with a frisky declawed cougar who was acclimated to see domesticated animals as appropriate companions, with appropriate scary camera angles and canned growling/ cougar screams.

I can't recall the book or the author, I read it back in high school (on stone tablets), I'll see what I can come up with.

[Horse Chestnut]

Was it Lady and Her Tiger, Deira? That was an excellent book; a real eye-opener that killed most of the romantic notions I had about working with movie and TV animals. (Though things may have changed some since the 60s.)

I couldn't remember all of it, but I did seem to remember that the "fight scenes" were, many times, two animals that had been raised together at play.

You would think, if nothing else, that the wild animals would be too valuble to risk in a real fight scene, but Pat Derby implies that they would be considered expendable if a director wanted a certain shot.

On the other hand, "Lassie" never impressed me as being a real high budget show.