Pal (dog actor)

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Pal was the name of a famous dog, the first to portray Lassie, a famous Rough Collie. Pal was owned by animal trainers Frank and Rudd Weatherwax, and was born June 20, 1940.

Pal's big break came in 1943, during the filming of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film Lassie Come Home. The studios had decided to use a show collie trained by Frank Inn to portray the title character. However, a snap decision was made to take advantage of a massive flooding of the Sacramento River in northern California in order to obtain some spectacular footage for the film. As the collie was still in training, MGM hired Pal as a stand-in for the river scene. Although the work was considered complicated for an animal actor, the dog performed exceptionally well.

According to legend, after seeing the first prints, the head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, stated that "Pal had entered the water, but Lassie had come out", and a new star was born. Pal retired at the age of five years old, but a long line of Pal's descendants have continued to portray Lassie, most recently in a 1994 update of the original film.

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