PART 1: Peg Munves: Working with an agent

May 15, 7:03 PMShowbiz Pets ExaminerLorraine Goodman

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Peg & Jazz

Peg Munves, Senior Trainer and Handler and talent scout for the New York City animal talent agency ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL has worked with multiple animal talent agencies since 1992 and has handled her own dogs and many others on hundreds of shoots - from print ads to commercials to television shows.

I recently spoke with her, in advance of her upcoming Acting seminars being held on May 23, 2009 at Positive Motivation Dog Training facility in Belvidere, New Jersey and on July 12, 2009 at Port Chester Obedience and Training Club  in White Plains, NY.

L: You work with animal agency, ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL, as a handler but also as a dog owner. Have you always worked with them?

P:  I was not exclusive with anyone for years, but because I am a trainer and handler and I handle a lot of jobs without my own animals, that’s my arrangement with them now. However, anyone can say they want you to be exclusive -- they can say whatever they want. But unless they’re willing to cough up or say, ‘hey, you know what: we’re going to get you X amount of work’ or ‘we want you to do this, that. and the other thing’, what’s the point of being exclusive? There’s just not enough work to go exclusive unless you have another niche in the market.
   

 
Jazz (in the back) with Ashley Judd

    What can get awkward for some people: if you’re registered for three or four agencies, -- which most people are -- is that you get called by everybody for the same job, and that’s where things start getting tricky. You get into this whole thing with the people who do the hiring of the dogs– not the agents, but everybody else – trying to get them for the lowest common denominator. And we put out hours and hours that we don’t get paid for, for getting jobs set up: finding the animals, getting the right animals, submitting, submitting, submitting -- sometimes we submit 20, 30, 40 dogs for one dog shot, and then we find, after someone put in 2 hours a day for 7 days on this that they put it out to all the other agencies. And that’s just the way the business is. 

   We try to bring value to the business – which is why I like ALL CREATURES.  Our whole name of the game is value. We want value for the people we work with. We want them to get paid well. What happens is, many pet-dog people are fine with their dog being in a catalog for free.  They’re fine for going for free for 8 hours and putting up with this that and the other thing. But we don’t believe in that.  We believe people should be paid for their time. It’s a professional business. This is in conflict with what a lot of the other agencies do and what a lot of people who are “agents” do.
    It’s business, really.

L: Where do you recommend pet-dog owners start? Do you suggest that they not do these freebie gigs?

P: I would suggest NEVER doing anything for free. This is my take. I have never done anything for free since I’ve been in the business. And I don’t recommend  anybody does. And there are many reasons for this: It takes value away from everybody else  who’s doing it professionally. If you have an untrained dog, it really looks bad for everybody in the business.  I’ve encountered dozens of professionals on the other side of the camera who are just amazed that my dog can even do a sit-stay. Because the dogs they hire are not trained.
 

L: One of Tiger’s last jobs, the director wanted him to ‘just be a dog.’ Now, he can just ‘be a dog” with me – but how do I make him to do that with two models who are not dog-people?

P: It’s all with training. What they call, “natural dog behavior” is all trained.  Training is having the dog do the same thing over and over and over  again, which is what is required for professional work. People want it to look ‘natural’– What I say to the director or art person is, “That’s great – lemme know what you want the dog to do.  I need to direct the dog to tell him what to do. To get your best shot, looking natural means a trained behavior.

L: Your dog may be great at tugging at your pants when you don’t want him to, but can he do it when you do want him to? That’s the question.

P:  And when you have a million dollar budget waiting, do you want to take that chance?