Meet Australia’s modern day Dr Doolittle
He’s Australia’s leading animal trainer, working on some of TV’s biggest shows. And for Luke Hura, his love for animals is all in the family. SEE THE BEST DOG-FRIENDLY ACTIVITIES NEAR YOU
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Animal whisperer Luke Hura’s big break came training a rottweiler for TV’s Prisoner in the early ‘80s.
Now Australia’s foremost animal trainer for stage and screen, the founder of talent agency Paws on Film uses a very surprising method of ‘talking to the animals.’
“I don’t know whether you believe in past lives,” Hura said, “but my connection is far more powerful and greater than even I knew. I’ve often trained animals and I could swear it’s like I know them.
You can’t explain it, but you know that you’ve worked with them. You know them from somewhere [and] they seem to know absolutely everything you want from them.”
Hura’s process begins with meditation, to tap into the dog’s zone. Rejecting the idea that certain breeds are better at taking direction, Hura insists it’s all about the animal and reading its individual energy.
“A lot of people don’t have that,” he said. “They can teach dogs to do stuff, but... when they’re in a tight situation, they stress too much. That goes back onto the animals.”
Convinced training animals is his destiny, Hura passed this happy fate to his children, Jason and Leeza, both of whom work at Paws on Film. Inheriting her father’s special gift, animals often visit Leeza Hura in her sleep.
“Sometimes I think I’m more comfortable with animals than people,” she admits with a laugh. Hura names Kai, the maremma that plays Oddball in the 2015 movie of the same name, as the standout performer of his training career, thanks to a memorable scene in which the dog retrieves a precious penguin egg from over a cliff.
The day of filming, Kai negotiated the steep incline and safely recovered the egg at least forty times.
Hura recalls, “He did it over and over again, from every angle. They were filming from above, below, to the side - it was like he knew exactly what I wanted him to do and he did it.”
Red Dog’s Koko, meanwhile, took out the canine equivalent on an Oscar at the inaugural (and so far only) Golden Collar Awards in LA back in 2012, an honour Hura calls, “a trainer’s dream come true.”
Based on true stories, Hura believes both Oddball and Red Dog offer filmgoers permission to release emotion. Women frequently confide that husbands, fathers and sons who never cry are moved to tears.
“If a movie can do that...it helps heal people,” he said. “To me, that’s magic. It’s not about the success of it, but the effect it [has] on people’s lives.”
Citing the late UK trainer Barbara Woodhouse as an influence, Hura’s keen to take meditation to the next level: telepathic communication between people and animals.
“When you’re very close and connected [to another person], you can almost read each other’s thoughts. That’s what I’m talking about with the animals.
I’ve done it already, but I want to have it on a more consistent basis, where I can think something and the animals do it.”
Indeed, Paws on Film is developing a television concept in which everything is communicated via mental telepathy. It sounds improbable, but considering moments of unspoken understanding between people, Hura maintains it’s not far-fetched to imagine such connections extend to four-legged friends.
He said, “My greatest dream is to go onto a film set and say, ‘Okay, there’s a couple of kangaroos - do you want them to come closer?’ And mentally get them to come over and say hello.”
If Luke Hura and family deliver that, well, surely a TV series is only the beginning.
Originally published as Meet Australia’s modern day Dr Doolittle