With big brown eyes and golden fur, Badger, the dog, just made her debut in the movie business with an appearance in Disney’s live action movie “Lilo & Stitch.”
She is one of many dogs that animal trainer Sue Chipperton has prepared for scenes on the big screen. The movie, which debuted in theaters on Friday, May 23, also features Chipperton’s chickens, goats, and some of her other dogs. Badger plays the friendly pooch who teaches the movie’s star blue alien, Stitch, how to act like a dog so he can find a home with Lilo, who becomes his best friend.
“Stitch is looking around to try and figure out how to fit in and what he needs to do to look normal as the dog,” Chipperton told Aloha State Daily.
He looks up and sees a shelter adoption poster with a dog hugging a human. Then, Stitch makes eye contact with Badger, who is barking. He retracts his antennas, and Badger — who was just seven months old at the time — stops barking.
“That was her first time on set,” Chipperton said. “Your dogs have to be really stable, solid, outgoing, fearless dogs to be on a movie set, because there's so many crazy things going on. There's so many people — [and there’s] equipment.”
Also featured in the Disney movie are Chipperton’s chickens and goats. Chipperton wears a few different titles. She is an animal trainer and coordinator for movies like “Lilo & Stitch,” through her business Check the Gate. She has also trained animals for television shows, such as Hawaiʻi Five-0, Magnum, P.I., and NCIS: Hawaiʻi. She is a pet photographer and a puppy trainer.
Chipperton previously spent more than 20 years working for Studio Animal Services, which keeps its animal stars on an eight-acre ranch just north of Los Angeles. In 2013, she was working in Hawaiʻi to train dogs for the movie, “Godzilla.” For other films, she has worked with horses, cats, mules, pigs, crabs, fish, pigeons and guinea pigs.
She eventually moved to Oʻahu in 2014. Following that, she trained animals for “Jurassic World.”
Her favorite part of the job?
“I mean — just being an animal trainer,” she said with a laugh. “I'm not working in an office all day long. It's always diff
