Dont know what you lot thought but I hated this ad, it was the one with the little white dog in a car singing Im a man, full of confidence and then the same dog shaking out of the car.

Read some bumf on it and it was done by training the little dog to stand on a vibrating plate and apparently no harm done, it was just the visual sight of that poor little creature shaking that made me want to turn the tv off.

I am glad its being taken off the box, anyone feel the same?

Oh I hated that ad - because i could never stop singing that bl&&dy song and it's not even a good un. Plus I can't even remember what its an advert for (but then I never do take any notice of the product). Glad it's off now then. I can think of a few more that are totally pointless too - that one with the car that breaks itself into a million bits and then reassembles itself because the driver enters the room -what's that all about?

There were two dogs both belonging to the same TV animal trainer the one that was used for most of the ad was the outgoing confident one who had an excited tremble. The trainer, from what I can gather simply caught this behaviour when it was happening (easily done using a clicker) and rewarded it. Nothing wrong with that.

The quieter, less outgoing dog was the one that stood on the vibrating plate as he didn't have that natural tremble.

Have to say, though it wasn't the most tasteful ad, I quite liked it and think the reactions to it were pretty OTT - the Amercian Humane Association were present and confirmed that the dogs were happy and confident.

JRTs are well known for shaking like that and I know someone who said her mum's JRT would stand exactly the same way when waiting for a treat!

I don't know how the dog was trained, the trainer said he does it naturally but was trained to do it on cue, so I would assume it'd either be associating something scary with a certain word so that when you said the word he became scared, OR, using a reward marker such as a clicker to capture the behaviour when it occured and reward for it, then gradually add a cue word. The latter would be the only technique suitable to produce a dog that would do it on command but still be confident and happy with his surroundings.

Have to say, my youngest does a fantastic impression of an abused dog when I say 'guilty dog'. She goes flat to the ground, puts her chin right to the floor and looks out of the top of her eyes - the behaviour was shaped used a clicker and food treats and after she first learned it she did it ALL the time - she absolutely loved it. She still gets very excited when I say it because it's one of her favourite tricks.

I can't really see what people's arguments are when there are films with animals in where the animal has to act injured, scared or neglected and it's all been done using training but people seem to like that!!

Have to say, though it wasn't the most tasteful ad, I quite liked it and think the reactions to it were pretty OTT - the Amercian Humane Association were present and confirmed that the dogs were happy and confident.I must say I quite liked the advert too... in a weird way! I knew full well that in this day & age it would have been made completely humanely, and I have also met a JRT that trembled like that so I knew it wasn't really scared... so I found it cute :)

Dont know what you lot thought but I hated this ad, it was the one with the little white dog in a car singing Im a man, full of confidence and then the same dog shaking out of the car.

Read some bumf on it and it was done by training the little dog to stand on a vibrating plate and apparently no harm done, it was just the visual sight of that poor little creature shaking that made me want to turn the tv off.

I am glad its being taken off the box, anyone feel the same?

Yes I am glad it has been taken off. I was particularly disturbed by the tail between the legs, not nice.

I am not one for complaining,:roll: but I wrote to complain about the one a few years ago when the childs rabbit was missing out of the hutch and the family were out all night searching for it, child in tears etc. The child was given something food related to take her mind off it, anyway all was well then and she forgot about the rabbit. No mention of the poor rabbit and the message sent out was that the food compensated for the rabbits misfortune.

It got took off air from the huge volume of complaints.

It was not the training of the dogs that worried me, I feel confident that animals used on tv etc are under stringent legislation but it was the sight of this poor little dog with tail between legs, ok, he may have been as happy as larry but not something I wanted to see.

Know what you mean about guilty looks though Lottie, if I so much as say, 'whos in the kitchen eating the cat food' Josh does a retreat to his bed and looks guilty. Funny thing was it wasnt him, it was always Shadow who stole the food, just Josh took the guilt!

theres already a thread about this somewhere

A huge percentage of the complaints were concerning the welfare of the dogs... I can understand some people may find them distasteful but there are adverts I find distasteful, I don't think they should be taken off the air. As long as nobody was harmed in the making of them I have no worries, I'll just change channel or go make a cuppa instead of watching it.

Takara very rarely gives me guilty looks if she's done anything wrong, for a start I know it's not guilt, it's a non threatening submissive look and Takara's rarely has any reason to look that way because she either gets caught too late and doesn't know what it is she's done or she's too damned cheeky to bother because she knows she won't get told off! (She very rarely actually does anything I need to tell her off for anymore).

She gives me the 'guilty' look when I say 'guilty dog' because I shaped it with the clicker. It's not something she would do naturally but she offered me the beginning stages of it by lowering her head and I shaped it from there. And yet she's a fantastic actress! Looks very upset when I say it even though she's desperately holding the position until she gets the treat!

Hmm, there has been quite an uproar about this advert, resulting in VW saying it hasn't been taken off air but it's run it's course now -as most adverts do. The confident dog singing in the car made me really happy but the nervy, quivering dog made me miserable. It was a genius work of advertising thinking about it.

Having said that, I wasn't comfortable with the image of a nervous dog being held up as a figure of fun for the sake of selling more cars. I guess I'd be more inclined to avoid a Golf because of the advertising campaign - apart from the fact that they're notoriously targetted by car thieves and owners have been contacted by the police in the past to keep their cars safe.

I'd be more scared of my confident little dog getting nicked with the car - I wonder if sales have gone up or down after this campaign?

i loved this ad as my jr looks like the one in the ad

Hmm, there has been quite an uproar about this advert, resulting in VW saying it hasn't been taken off air but it's run it's course now -as most adverts do. The confident dog singing in the car made me really happy but the nervy, quivering dog made me miserable. It was a genius work of advertising thinking about it.

Having said that, I wasn't comfortable with the image of a nervous dog being held up as a figure of fun for the sake of selling more cars. I guess I'd be more inclined to avoid a Golf because of the advertising campaign - apart from the fact that they're notoriously targetted by car thieves and owners have been contacted by the police in the past to keep their cars safe.

I'd be more scared of my confident little dog getting nicked with the car - I wonder if sales have gone up or down after this campaign?

It was advertising a Polo ;)

Having a JRT myself that shakes I quite liked the ad, it showed just what they are like. Oz trembles or dithers for loads of different reasons, and they are quite nervous dogs some of the time, then the rest of the time they are confident and big for their boots. I'm sure like has been said, it was all done humanely. There are loads of ads/films etc where animals are treated unfairly; I don't think this was one of them though. If it wasn't a JRT then this might not be the case, but they just enhanced the dogs natural characteristics. And how much was computer enhanced? Because to me it looked like quite a lot.

Apparently, none of the shaking was computer enhanced, only the singing.

It is, however, easy to enhance the natural characteristics, as you say, by shaping the dog to do it on cue.

oh .. err, I thought this was a super ad.

My mums yorkie trembles like that when I take my dog to see her. But with him its rage as he wants to kill her but seeing as he can hardly walk and has no teeth he settles for giving her dirty looks.

I loved this advert actually and didn't see the shaking as shaking out of fear or anything.....I saw it as it was singing out loud when it was ok to do so but then, when it was at a time when he was supposed to contain himself, he was straining to keep his happiness under wraps....like some of us used to say to a boisterous child "you have to be quiet when we are in the shops", so the quieter singing was him still singing, cos he was happy, but more through his teeth as it were, in an effort to look as if he was acting dignified. I have seen dogs shake when just being told to "stay" cos they are just so excited to do what they were being trained to do.
Funny how some of us see things that others don't.

Joanl, it said 'Polo Confidence' so I did see it as the dog was nervous when out of the car as opposed to just trying to contain himself. Interesting to see another point of view on it though.