YAWN, JACK, YAWN
Dogs are known to sit, jump and bark on cue. But can they be trained to yawn?
Laid Back Jack did just that for a new Yarnell's Ice Cream commercial.
"I don't think he did it actually on cue," says Boyd Blackwood of the advertising agency Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods. "That's just his nature, I guess."
The 11-year-old basset hound is featured in the commercial, which shows a sleepy Southern town that comes alive when the new Yarnell's flavors arrive.
Laid Back Jack had the sleepy part down just fine.
"Mainly all he did was lay there on the porch," Blackwood says. "I guess he just got into it."
The problem came when Laid Back Jack was supposed to get excited and chase an ice cream truck. "That took some doing," Blackwood says.
"His owners didn't dream it would be possible," says David Parr, an agent who worked to get Jack to be not quite so laid back. Parr had to run with Laid Back Jack for two takes. "Both of us were pooped and glad they were going on with something else."
The yawning was easier. Laid Back Jack yawned when Parr yawned. "When you yawn, other people around you yawn," Parr says. "It sort of works the same way for dogs, I guess."