In “The Wizard of Oz,” Toto’s mischief might be the impetus for Dorothy’s trip to Oz, but, in real life, the dogs that are tasked with playing the character in the traveling musical production have had the best trainer in the business.
William Berloni has been training dogs for stage productions since he was 19 years old working as a stagehand in Connecticut.
When the Goodspeed Opera House needed someone to find and train a dog for their production of “Annie,” Berloni was given the job in exchange for a part in one of the shows. The aspiring actor found a dog to play Sandy at the Connecticut Humane Society.
A year later, the pair headed to Broadway.
In recent years, Berloni has trained the dogs used in NBC’s “Peter Pan Live!” and “The Wiz Live!,” a task he said was just like training dogs for theater but without the distracting audience.
Now an acclaimed trainer in showbiz and a consultant for the Humane Society of New York, Berloni and his wife currently take care of more than 30 dogs, a feat that is captured on Discovery Family’s “Wags to Riches.”
All of the animals that have been used by Bereloni for productions were adopted by him from pet shelters as a part of his goal to “promote animal welfare.”
Metro Atlanta residents will be able start the adoption process on a pet of their own this weekend before heading inside the Fox Theatre to see “The Wizard of Oz.”
Atlanta Pet Rescue and Adoption will be onsite at the Fox Theatre ahead of the weekend shows to show off their cute, adoptable pets.
They’ll also be onsite throughout the week, collecting donated pet supplies as a part of “Toto’s Pet Supply Drive.”
These items are specifically needed:
- Paper towels
- HE laundry detergent
- Fleece Blankets
- Science Diet Advance Fitness dog food
- Creamy peanut butter
- Toys and training treats (cats and dogs)
- Tidy Cat scoopable cat litter
- Royal Canin Feline Health Nutrition Mother & Babycat dry cat food
- Royal Canin Feline Health Nutrition Babycat instinctive dry cat food
Visit the full wish list here.
Ahead of the Atlanta shows, Berloni told us controlling the behavior of actors is far more unpredictable than trying to train a dog.
“My dogs don’t come in hungover or having just broken up from a bad relationship,” he said.
He said every show is created with a backup plan because dogs, like humans, make mistakes.
Berloni had nothing but praise for Sarah Lasko, who plays Dorothy. Many times actors are hired that are allergic to pets and or just don’t like them, which makes it hard for them to bond with the animals, he said. That’s not the case in this production.
“We’ve always trained the actors to be trainers so that all the commands are coming from the actors,” Berloni said. “But dogs don’t listen to strangers so we take these actors and, not only do we have to teach them how to be trainers, we have to get the dogs to fall in love with them.”
Lasko, in fact, has had a few sleepovers with the production's dogs, Nigel and his underestudy Loki.
We asked Berloni to share three tips for training a dog, just in case you decide to adopt a dog this weekend (or you already have one).
Here’s what he had to say:
1. Choose the right dog for your lifestyle.
“Nobody goes to a bar, sits next to someone who is attractive and says ‘marry me.’ You find a person that you get along with. But with dogs you go into a shelter and you go ‘oh, this one’s so cute.’ Wrong.”
2. Take your puppy to training class.
“If you get a puppy, go to training class. Nature intended for puppies to be raised by their mother and father and their siblings and at 8-weeks-old we rip them from their social structure. If you get a puppy, you’ve got to be all of those things to get them to be a well-rounded dog and you get that by going to class.”
3. Use positive reinforcements.
“You’ll have better success with any creature if they want to do it as opposed to if they’re forced to do it and I can say that about dogs, cats, kids, wives and friends.”
If You Go: times vary. June 21-26. $30.00 - $95.00. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St., Atlanta. FoxTheatre.org.
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