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Weatherwax Family dog trainers
The Weatherwax family have an interesting background that dates back to the mid-1800’s but their notoriety starts in 1911 when the family moved to Los Angeles, California . Two of the boys, Frank and Rudd, were allowed to raise some pups on the condition that they trained them and their training tricks proved quite imaginative. One pup would pick up any money he found lying on the floor and deposit it in a drawer, another would fetch an apple out of a stand that the boys had touched earlier as they walked past it…two blocks away.
In the early 1920’s Frank and Rudd’s movie careers started by hanging around outside studio gates hoping to be hired as an extra. To pass time, the boys would bring their dogs and cleverly attracted attention to themselves by having the dogs walk on their hind legs or perform tricks when studio personal appeared. The boys, and their dogs, got parts in quite a few movies. A wire haired terrier named “Asta” appeared in ‘The Thin Man’, and a dog named “Daisy” played in the ‘Blondie’ movies with Penny Singleton. Jack Weatherwax became a trainer for Carl Spitz, who owned the cairn terrier everyone knows as ‘Toto’, helping to work “Terry” during the filming of the ‘Wizard of Oz’, and Bill Weatherwax trained dogs for the army during World War II.
In 1940 they formed a partnership business known as “The Studio Dog Training School”, and from the partnership came the dog stars known as “Lassie” and “Old Yeller”. We are proud to honor the Weatherwax Family in our Hall of Fame. |
 | Last Updated: Sunday, July 19, 2009
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