Paws, Applause, and a Mighty Good Cause

Teaching a dog to walk a tightrope is no easy feat. Neither is teaching one how to jump rope, ride a skateboard and scooter, do a handstand, or act in a movie. And cats? They were long thought to be impossible to train at all. But Melissa Millett, an animal trainer with years of experience with animals and the industry, makes it all seem easy.

Millett has been training animals for over twenty years. Her house is more theirs than hers; she spoke to me sitting on her couch with a dozen animals lounging beside her on a massive couch clearly chosen to accommodate the herd, including a chilly chihuahua named Sugar that curled into her hoodie. She’s appeared on several major Canadian news networks, and has also appeared on Canada’s Got Talent, Good Morning America, and more to showcase her craft. She sat beside Krypto from Titans, Hendrix from Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, and a score of other animal actors and performers while she told me about her career.

Millett started training animals for fun after getting her first dog at 18, and her passion only grew from there. By 25, she’d started offering lessons to other pet owners, and at 27, opened her school, In Dogs We Trust. She taught her own pets tricks on the side and put on a show, called The Ultimutts, at a local festival to promote her school. By chance, the show scored her an agent and opened up the world of animal entertainment.

Millett was happy to keep showing off her animals. “My friend says that I’m the trained animal because I like being told my dogs are cute,” she joked. “So I showcase my dogs, and then at the end, everybody reinforces me by telling me that they’re cute.”

After adopting a Bengal cat named Sashimi—all of Millett’s animals have to have food-themed names—and incorporating her into the show, Millett started getting more attention, including the opportunity to start training for movies. Cats are tougher to train than dogs, but still prevalent in films, so Millett started to make a name for herself as a cat training specialist while she found her footing in the industry.

On training cats as opposed to dogs, Millett recognizes the difficulty and takes pride in her work. “They don’t take directions from humans very well. You don’t really have the same relationship where they care what you think. They’re much more independent.” As for how she does it, “I think you just have to be better at training.” She started with Sashimi just to see if she could do it, and then trained more cats as she continued honing her skills.

Millett also acts as an agent called an animal coordinator to scout animals for movies, like Chewy, who plays Priscilla Presley’s dog, Honey, in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla. Chewy was a client at In Dogs We Trust, and when Millett was tasked with finding a dog to play the role, she knew Chewy was the perfect fit. Millett personally took over Chewy’s training to prepare him for a movie set with a mock camera and boom mic, making sure his comfort was prioritized on set.

However, many of the animal actors in Melissa’s agency Ultimutt Animal Actors are actually her own pets. Her most famous cat is a striking Maine Coon named Tonic. 

Tonic was one of the two main cats to play Church in the 2019 remake of Pet Sematary, where he played a cat risen from the dead as a violent shell of his former self. He also had a role in the 2023 horror film Thanksgiving and most recently starred alongside Austin Butler in Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing.

Tonic’s role in Caught Stealing was an important one, and he appeared in a lot of key scenes throughout the movie, so there was a lot of concern regarding the fickleness of a cat actor. But Millett knew Tonic would give them nothing to worry about.

“With Tonic, we walked onto the set and gave them exactly what they wanted, first go, second go,” Millett said proudly. There are even quotes from Aronofsky himself fawning over Tonic’s professionalism and Millett’s training on the Ultimutts Animal Actors website. Stars Austin Butler and Zoё Kravitz both described him as “amazing.”

Tonic is also a stuntcat in Millett’s show, so she couldn’t resist showing off a little at the Caught Stealing premiere. He stole the show in a custom-made studded leather jacket, driving a vintage toy car remodeled with a remote control. “I wanted people to see how amazing he was, so I was like, ‘I’m gonna train him to drive into the premiere in a mini car to show people that this is a really special cat,’” she said.

Four of Millett’s dogs are deaf. Deaf and otherwise disabled animals are often viewed as shameful and unfavorable by breeders, but Millett thinks otherwise. “It can be a real superhero power,” she said. Working as actors, especially, it’s a strength for an animal to not be spooked by sounds. For every drawback, like requiring hand signals rather than vocal ones, there’s an equal positive. “As difficult as it is, it’s just as easy.”

Jellybean, an Australian cattle dog who had his head resting in her lap for much of the interview, is among them. Millett adopted him from the Deaf Dog Rescue of America and went on to train him for Fractured, Orphan Black: Echoes, and Pet Sematary: Bloodlines. His deafness makes him eerily quiet, which lent to his creepy role as an undead family dog. He’s also starred in several commercials, including one for a pet food company that donated a skid of food to the Deaf Dog Rescue of America in a heartwarming full-circle moment. 

Disabled animals are still abandoned or euthanized by some breeders, and Millett hopes to change that. “We want to show that they’re adoptable, and make amazing pets,” Millett said. Jellybean is a Guinness World Record holder for two different basketball tricks, appeared on Canada’s Got Talent, and was a semi-finalist for the World’s Most Amazing Dog. Another one of Millett’s deaf dogs, Lollipop, also holds a record for fastest 5m on a scooter by a dog and cat with Sashimi.

On top of advocating for deaf animals, Millett aims to spread joy with the Ultimutts. They perform volunteer therapeutic shows for women and children at shelters and care centers. “I never forgot the effect that dogs had on people, and decided that their incredible talents should be used for making the world a better place,” she said in a dog-focused segment on Rogers TV.

Millett has many titles—trainer, teacher, agent, record holder, business owner—and she also has a lot of dreams. She aspires to help people with her shows, spread awareness about caring for disabled animals, and further her career in the industry. She dreams of working on a remake of Homeward Bound, if they make one, and hopes that animal actors like Tonic encourage filmmakers to take on ideas with more complex roles for animals.