Mark Forbes knows how to teach even an old dog new tricks. That’s his job.
Mark, 27, trains all sorts of animals – dogs, monkeys, dolphins, cats, even vultures – for movies and TV. You probably even know one of his pupils: Dreyfuss the dog from NBC’s “Empty Nest,” who lives with Mark.
Mark grew up on a ranch in Oregon. “We had lots of animals, barnyard animals and exotic ones like emus,” he recalls. He loved working with his pets. Then he heard about an animal-training program at Moore Park Community College in California.
“They have a compound with about 1,000 animals,” he says. “They only take about 50 students a year, but the students spend all their time with animals, taking care of them, cleaning them and taking classes like veterinarian medicine and animal training.”
Mark graduated from the two-year program and went to work training dogs in Hollywood.
After a few months, he went to Knott’s Berry Farm, where he trained dolphins and sea lions.
“Dolphins and chimps are the most challenging animals to work with because they’re so intelligent,” Mark says. “Dolphins and chimps are so smart that they like to play mind games with you. One of their favorite things to do is to almost do the trick perfectly, that way they know they’ll get the treat anyway!”
Housecats are a real pain to train, too, Mark says. “Cats could not care less about doing what you want them to do.” He notes that a lot of cats you see in commercials are actually three or four different cats that all look the same.
“They’ll get one hyper cat to do the running parts, one sleepy cat to do the mellow shots,” he explains.
Dogs are definitely the most fun, he adds. “Dogs want to work with you.”
No matter what the animal, the key to training is repetition and reward. “You just have to keep showing them over and over,” he says.
Sometimes, though, it’s not the animal who is the problem. “One time I had a job where the dog had to kiss the actor and the actor said, `No way!’ ” Mark recalls. “Finally, we had to dress up one of the trainers like the actor and have the dog kiss him. Some people just don’t like animals.”
This summer, Mark will take on a new task. He has to train hundreds of birds for a remake of the movie “The Birds.”
As for Dreyfuss, since the show doesn’t tape over the summer, he’ll get a vacation.
“He’ll just get to be a dog,” Mark says. “You know, playing in the back yard, walking in the park.”
