Hollywood dog whose career tanked for biting, crowned most obedient | National

By Isobel Williams

A movie star dog whose Hollywood career tanked after he started biting crew has been crowned the world’s most obedient canine thanks to a dedicated British trainer.

Banzai Vom Tiefgestade trained for the film industry as a pup and appeared in blockbusters including Star Wars  and Venom 3.

But his burgeoning career came to an abrupt end at two-and-a-half years old when he became troublesome and started snapping at people on set.

Former Royal Marine Alex Cooper, 39, put the troubled German Shepherd through a strict training program and they started competing in “Schutzhund” competitions.

Schutzhund, German for “protection dog”, is a working-dog discipline that evaluates three areas of performance: tracking, obedience, and protection.

Now Banzai has won the RSV World Championship in Korbach, Germany, which is said to be one of the hardest and strictest of all obedience events.

He achieved  293 points – 99 out of 100 in tracking, 97 in obedience, and 97 in protection – the highest score ever recorded by a British competitor in a world-level Schutzhund competition.

This is Alex’s first world championship and only his third-ever participation in a major dog sport competition, following his victory at the 2021 Great Britain National IGP Championships.

He said: “He wasn’t originally my dog he was a film dog, but they lost control of him. He bit five people on the film sets. He is a special dog for me, but a nightmare for the average person.

“Everyone was expecting him to bite me, but we worked through it and the relationship just grew from there. He is a hard worker, I have never seen a dog who will take so much training.

“We are still carrying on in the pursuit of perfection. Every year dog sport is evolving. We are always having to do better.

“The world will say I should be mega happy, but we have more to show and he hasn’t reached his full potential. It never ends. I think he was performing at about 75 percent on championship day.

“He is a cheeky, crazy dog. When he puts his effort into something that powers him which makes him special.”

The world championship – which ran from October 3 to 5 – challenges to test for these include finding three personal items, jumping, climbing, biting an attacker, and generally following handler instructions.

Earlier in the season, they also earned a perfect protection score of 100 points during their qualification trial —positioning them among the top contenders heading into the world event.

Alex said: “Only so many people in the world can get to the world championships and be successful, some people will never get that. We are in the top one percent of people.

“It is a hard thing to achieve and a lifetime commitment for a crazy dog man like me.

“I wasn’t bothered if I won, the most important thing was for the dog to compete to his full potential in a big stadium with people and distractions. That was the big achievement, more so than the trophy.

“I surprised everyone because English trainers are not highly regarded by the world. Germany are known as the dog training gods, so when someone like me came and succeeded they were all happy and supportive.

“It is a huge achievement not just for me but for all the people who supported the dog coming through. I was lucky to have German trainers who helped us like we were family.

Alex started training at the age of nine, working with his own mischievous Border Collie named Basil and helping a neighbor with gundog training for Labradors and Springer Spaniels.

After serving in the Royal Marines until the age of 22, the dad got his first German Shepherd, Dylan, who later became a police dog.

Over the following 17 years, he has trained around 10 of his own dogs and worked with more than 15,000 dogs, including those considered difficult or dangerous.

Now, he acts as Chairman of the dog sport club RSVglobal Essex and runs a dog training business across London and Essex.

He said: “I have loved dogs since I was small, I was a bit of a crazy dog boy.

“When I left the Marines, everyone told me about this dog sport, which was meant to be the hardest one.

“I love the dog training. It can get a bit political as there is a lot of jealousy from people who didn’t expect you to push the boundaries.

“The amount of people that I have trained in the sport is so high, I don’t think anyone in the UK has done as many as me.”