People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is reaching out to production crew, announcing that they are offering a $5,000 reward to the anonymous person – whom they call a whistleblower – who filmed the German shepherd being mishandled on the set of A Dog’s Purpose and then gave (or sold?) the footage to TMZ.
PETA is promising anonymity and is asking the person – whomever was on the Winnipeg set of the Amblin/Walden Media/Universal film and took the footage of the dog being forced into the water – to call their whistleblower hotline number.
The organization has had a reward fund for years but this particular reward comes “courtesy of a donor who was horrified by the behind-the-scenes footage and shocked by PETA’s video exposé of BAU (Bird & Animals Unlimited).”
The footage that aired on TMZ was apparently shot 14 months earlier in October of 2015 but only surfaced two weeks before the film was released wide into theaters. The film has grossed $34.7M as of yesterday.
American Humane announced recently that their investigation found that no dogs were harmed on set and said that the video broadcast by TMZ showing a German Shepard being forced into the water and the later slipping under water “mischaracterized the events on the set.” They have not released the full video as yet to the public, but did acknowledge “that the handling of the dog in the first scene in the video should have been gentler and signs of stress recognized earlier.”
