Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
Wagging his tail back and forth, Scout, a 13-year-old Labrador Retriever, prances around the Evanston Animal Shelter, greeting everyone in sight. But galloping around would not have been a possibility for Scout as a young pup.
Scout, along with other dogs in his litter, suddenly became paralyzed from unknown causes at about two months old. The film “Puppy Love” tells the story of these dogs’ unlikely rehabilitation.
The Evanston Animal Shelter hosted a screening of the film Saturday, accompanied by a visit from Scout and the Director Gail Gilbert (Communication ’81,’18) to raise money for the shelter.
“To me, (the film) is a testament to the power of women,” the film’s publicist, Michael Smith, said. “To collaboratively work together and figure stuff out. They weren’t taking no for an answer.”
The four dogs in the film came from Gilbert’s cousin Cindy Nauer, a dog breeder. The puppies were adopted by different people and presumed to be healthy until they unexpectedly lost much of their mobility at about nine weeks old. Nauer had the dogs return to her home after learning of their paralysis.
When the puppies first became paralyzed, a vet advised that they should be put down, according to Gilbert. However, the women in the film, including Gilbert herself, decide to try to rehabilitate the dogs first.
The film details the extensive work Gilbert and others put into rehabilitating these puppies: taking them to massage therapy, creating make-shift slings to help them walk and feeding them a special diet.
In the end, all the puppies reach full mobility and even proceed to take part in competitions and certifications.
Gilbert’s film has been screened in theatres across the country to raise money for local animal shelters. As an Evanston local, she decided to reach out to the Evanston Animal Shelter to screen the film.
Evanston Animal Shelter Executive Director Vicky Pasenko said the film’s message of resiliency resonated with the shelter’s goal.
“It’s just an example of how you don’t give up on animals, they don’t give up on themselves,” Paskeno said.
Gilbert said she did not initially look to turn the story into a film. Before making this movie, Gilbert worked in TV commercial editing and not film-making.
During the rehabilitation process, she asked her assistant to shoot some videos of the puppies because the process felt foreign to Gilbert, who said she was not a dog person at the time.
From there, she said her assistant “got hooked” and came out to shoot frequently. But after the puppies recovered, Gilbert said she was so exhausted from caring for the dogs that she could not even think about creating a film.
It wasn’t until five years later that she decided to look at the footage and create a 10-minute movie for her documentary class in her Northwestern MFA program.
Then, two years ago, when Scout was 11 years old, Gilbert decided to make a full movie from the footage about the canine-human bond.
“It kind of grew to be bigger than it was. … I didn’t intend it to be a bigger message than just documenting something,” Gilbert said. ”But it seems to strike a chord with people to try things that they didn’t think they could succeed in.”
Email: [email protected]
X: @SarahSerota
Related stories:
—Staff and faculty pets bring comfort and community to campus
—Follow Your Nose helps pet owners navigate animal nutrition
—How to keep pets healthy during winter months in Evanston
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.