Monkey See, Monkey Do: How Omar Von Muller trains dogs like Monkey to perform tricks and live their best lives

by #LizPublika

Dogs are fascinating, which is likely the reason they are the most searched for animals on Instagram, though cats are worthy competitors. But there are some dogs that capture the attention and imagination of people more than other dogs, and Monkey is one of these. He is an extraordinary animal, because aside from being cute as hell, he’s also more accomplished in his personal and professional life than many people. Omar Von Muller made sure of that. 

Muller is both a professional dog trainer and Monkey’s pack leader. While this may be the first time you are hearing his name, you’ve likely seen his work. Not only is Monkey an internet sensation, he’s also a Hollywood star, thanks to Muller’s work in Los Angeles for nearly three decades. From last year’s Nightbitch (2024) to the throwback Orange County (2002), Muller and his dogs have enjoyed impressive careers in entertainment.

While Monkey’s currently making his mark in the industry, he’s not the first of Omar’s dogs to do so. There was Uggie, the Jack Russell Terrier who joined the cast on stage when they won both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for The Artist (2011), becoming the first dog in Oscar history to do so; he also had his paws prints cast at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. And then there was Jumpy, the painting dog who set the precedent for Monkey. But there were and are others. 

Omar doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to dog training. For him, it’s about learning the particulars of each dog and then using them to achieve goals others may regard as impossible. “I’ve loved dog tricks since I was a kid,” shares Omar, “so my dogs are always learning new ones.” It’s just a matter of putting in the time and teaching the dogs patiently and enjoyably, insists Omar. “They are so much smarter and more versatile than people think.” 

If you watch clips of Monkey on Instagram, you’ll immediately understand that Muller practices what he preaches. He can perform CPR, open hotel room doors and use the bathroom; he can climb trees and balance on a rope. As for his paintings, Monkey has recently segwayed into landscapes and nature scenes and away from his earlier abstract works. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, which is absolutely insane when you think about the lives of most dogs. 

ARTpublika Magazine had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Omar Von Muller about his incredible dog training career, genuine passion for animals, and the canine extraordinaire who is Monkey the Belgian Malinois. 

Where are you from?

I was born in Colombia, South America. 

Growing up in Colombia, did you have pets? 

Yes, we’ve always been a family with pets. Always. It was a zoo.

What kinds of pets did you have?

You name it. Colombia has a lot of wildlife, so I kept different animals, like snakes and alligators, all kinds of birds, and even anteaters. Whatever I found, I would bring to my house. I would come home from school and hang out with all my animals. That was pretty much my thing. 

Who was your favorite pet as a kid? 

I liked them all. But, I have always been drawn to dogs, because we get to interact and do a lot more stuff with them than your average snake or alligator. 

Are your parents in professions that involve animals? 

No. My parents were separated, and my dad wasn’t around anymore when I was a kid. But my mom was very supportive and let me have just about anything that I wanted. We only had issues once, when I brought home a boa that was like 12 or 14 feet long, that’s when my mom said: “No, you’re not bringing that inside the house.” 

So, at what point did simply enjoying the company of your pets turn into the realization that you can train them?  

I don’t really know. My older brother was a trainer, so I got some training tips from him. But I have been training dogs since I was a kid, just kind of figuring it out, so it was mainly a natural thing. I was training my animals, I was training my friends’ dogs in Colombia, and then we came to the states in 1978, when I was 16. I attended high school in Maryland and moved to Florida after. While looking through the Yellow Pages for a job, I came across this training canine academy, so I went and checked it out. I got the job right away because I had experience, and I never looked back.

When did you start developing your technique, if you have one? 

Techniques grew throughout the years. Of course at the beginning, I used my imagination, watched what other people were doing, and gained experience, because in dog training there are a lot of fields. It’s not just about obedience and tricks; there’s a lot of studying about different dogs and what they are being trained for: police dogs, search and rescue dogs, hunting dogs. In the late 1980s, I was also competing in a couple of different dog sports. One is called Schutzhund; [a German dog sport that tests a dog's tracking, obedience, and protection skills, and evaluates if a dog has the appropriate traits and characteristics of a good working dog.] The other one is called Ring Sport; [a French dog sport that consists of three elements: agility, obedience, and protection.] So, through experience, I was just developing and learning and striving to do better.

When you first encounter a dog, what is the evaluation process that you go through? 

It really depends on what the goals are for each dog. When it’s a pet, temperament wise, I am looking for something that is not crazy shy. But, when I was doing studio work, the main things that we were looking for in a dog were that it wasn’t crazy shy and that it was lighter colored, since black-colored animals are harder to film or photograph. So color and temperament are the most important traits when it comes to studio work. 

I have a dog named Lucy. She's a cute and fluffy labradoodle but looks like a mutt, so she has taken on so many roles, I can’t even count how many. Monkey is a different story. He’s a Belgian Malinois, so the jobs he’s gotten/going to get are roles as a police dog, an attack dog, or a guard dog, because that’s his look. Monkey is more of a pet, he’s a fun dog who does a lot of different things. Of course we also did a lot of studio work with him, but it wasn’t like with Lucy. 

What do you think is the number one thing people miss about dogs? 

Dogs are very, very smart. They can read you and your body language. And they can do so many things that people ignore because they don’t think that the dogs can do them or that they can’t teach their dogs to do those things. People see me and think the dogs listen only because it’s me doing them, but the truth is that a lot of people could do this if they put in the time and the training. And it’s not just about doing tricks, it’s about having a dog that you can take anywhere and have it behave like a good citizen. But you have to spend a lot of time with your dog, learn  the basics and train it. A trainer may train your dog, but if you don’t put the work in yourself in different situations, it’s going to act the same as before. So, it’s about having an open mind about what you can do with your dog. 

How critical is physical stimulation and exercise for your dog in order for it to train well? 

That’s one of the most important things, having a dog that’s physically fit and healthy. Take Monkey, for example, you mainly see him paint on Instagram but we do a lot of different things: play, swim, and partake in a lot of activities to keep in shape and create joyful experiences. So that’s really important. 

What was the first animal acting job that you booked? 

Oh, that goes way back! Before I even moved to Los Angeles, I had a Belgian Malinois, he was the one who used to compete, so he was very good at doing tricks. I knew people who did commercials and things like that in the Florida area; they called me a few times for background work, like playing frisbee and stuff like that, so we did quite a few of those. But that wasn’t acting. They were like these little spots. And then, when I first moved to California, my Jack Rusell booked some really good commercials. The first big one we did was for a van, he had to do a lot of ticks for it. Actually, that commercial won awards. Then, from there, we got a movie, Orange County with Jack Black. That was thanks to my buddy Andy. 

What was the most difficult acting job that you’ve had to train a dog for? 

That’s a good question. We did a commercial for State Farm, I think it was. That was pretty intense because we had to teach the dogs to go underwater and come out of the water and shake their heads. That was challenging but not impossible; we prepped for about a week to shoot that one. But we were using my dogs, who were very well trained dogs and already knew how to swim, so it was about figuring out the diving details. 

We did a scene for Nightbitch, the movie that came out not too long ago, where 12 or 14 dogs came out of their houses and followed Amy Adams while she was running down the street. Actually, in the movie, the scene is very short — like, what’s the big deal, you know —  but when we were training for and shooting it, we had to get 12 dogs to come one at a time from both sides of the street, and run in a straight line behind Amy, which is hard. I was running backwards in front of Amy the entire block, with a car and a camera next to me, calling to the dogs. It was pretty tiring and crazy to shoot, but we got it done and it was good. When we did Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we did all the attack scenes with the pitbulls and stuff, they were really intense but they were really lots of fun. 

So, it sounds like you have to be in pretty good shape to do this job. 

In a lot of situations, yeah. 

Do you have a favorite breed? 

The Belgian Malinois, because Monkey is my everything right now. I’ve known Molingers my whole life, like the one that I had when I was completing in the late 1980s. But, I just love dogs. I am crazy about mutts, I love mutts. And if they’re active, they’re great dogs! 

How do you feel about pits? 

I love pits. Pits are really incredible dogs. It’s important to understand that when you look at a pit, there is a lot of genetic variation in each one; some are working dogs, some are great fighting dogs, some are total wusses. So it’s hard to pinpoint and say which pit is which, and people have to be careful about that. But in general, pits are really great dogs. 

How old is Monkey? 

Monkey is six years old, his birthday is on the 19th of April. 

Where did you get him? 

I had a very famous dog before Monkey, Jumpy. He was an internet sensation and we did a lot of cool stuff with him. I got Monkey a couple of years after he passed, when I was like: “OK, it’s time to get another dog.” I wanted a Belgian Malinois, because like I said, I’ve had a lot of experience with them. And because most of my dogs do pretty well and people know them across the world, I get a lot of calls from breeders who want to give me a free dog; something top of the line. But I always like to go for the underdog, so I went to Craigslist and looked for regular breeders. There was a liter, so I said: “Let me just go and see what they have.” There were 8 puppies or so, but I picked Monkey because I was doing studio work and he had the lightest color. I didn’t look at temperament or anything like that, but I did look at his parents and they were healthy, so I took him home and began training on day one. He exceeded everything that I hoped for and that’s where he’s at today. 

How did training start? 

With all of my dogs, not just Monkey, training — and by that I mean education — starts on day one. It means getting the dog used to the crate, housebreaking it, socializing it. We start feeding by hand and learning basic tricks, and building on that [foundation]: At 8 weeks old, teaching him sitting down and turning around, speaking, waving, and retrieving stuff. At 8 months old, getting him used to the water and teaching him to swim. We train and have fun, train and have fun. His videos, they all went viral. He constantly gets hundreds of millions of views, so people get to know Monkey really quick. There’s something about him that people have loved since he was a puppy. I don’t know what it is. For example, I have Lucy and even though she’s cute as hell and people love Lucy, if I put out a video of her doing anything and then post a video of Monkey doing the same thing, Lucy’s videos will go here and there and she has a few viral ones, but Monkey’s explodes. 

How old was he when he got his first gig? 

12 Weeks I think it was. It was a quick scene in the movie Aftermath. In the end, he comes out. 

When did he first pick up a paintbrush? 

The foundation of the training is laid down without paint. I teach the dog to have fun with the brush and how to follow my signals. Monkey was always good at this. So, I thought: “Let me just see how far we can go with paint.” That was in September or October, I think, sometime last year. We started hitting it really hard and training every day, really concentrating on the drills: touch here and touch there, follow my finger, etc. But, I made sure that we were making these short sessions, only a few minutes, and then coming back the next day. That way, the dog stays motivated and doesn’t get pressured. Soon, he started looking for the brush, like: “Are we gonna do it?”  So you keep building out that willingness to do something, like other behaviors, and that’s it. It’s been crazy good. It’s been crazy, crazy good. I never put a time limit on how long it should take for a dog to learn something. I’ll just go with the flow — if he learns it, fine, and if he doesn’t learn it, fine. But sure enough, by January, Monkey was already doing some really nice paintings. 

What is his masterpiece? 

I really don’t know. I like them all. One of the latest ones is a landscape, and I really, really like it. His abstract paintings are really pretty, but they are hard to appreciate if you don’t see them in person. But when you do, there are many colors on the brush so Monkey creates these cool strokes and circles. I look at the painting and I’m like: “Wow, the highlights are really pretty!” So, his abstracts are really pretty, but now we are more into landscapes, sunsets, and natural things. 

Does it get easier with practice? 

It’s becoming easier and easier. And it’s not just the animal learning, I’m learning, too; like, I am getting to know which strokes are his favorite. We’re also working on precision, like when we do a little tree and a branch has to come from that tree and extend out. The precision required to go to the exact point from where to draw the branch takes a lot of time to develop, but it’s really awesome that he’s doing it. I’m really excited about it. We train almost every day, almost. Even if it’s just 5 minutes on a dry erase board, we can practice shapes and lines and do a fun little lesson with him, that way I can study what we did so when we work on a canvas I know where he stands and what he can do. In the beginning we messed up a bunch of canvases. You start painting something and it’s looking really good and then all of the sudden there’s this big black line across the painting: “Oh no, I messed it up!” So you throw it away and start again. But now it’s getting to a point where very few mistakes like that happen. Which I am really glad about because that was the worst. 

When it comes to treats and rewards, what do they get?

I do a lot of training with food, and feed dogs strictly by hand. When we do a general training session, which lasts about 15 to 20 minutes, the dog is focused on me and we create a really strong bong because the food is coming from my hand. Then, we start weaning that out, a little bit of food here and there. This makes the food drive really high. The dogs get treats sometimes, but in general they get dog food when we do a session. We also do a lot of play rewards with toys, but I usually use the play rewards for other behaviors. In general, the best reward you can give a dog is hugs and kisses. They really enjoy that kind of stuff. They really appreciate that more than anything else. 

Do you still reside in Los Angeles? 

No, I moved to Florida last year. Now, with the change of pace, we’re doing things a little differently, focusing a lot on internet stuff. 

Is there something you’d like to share? 

If you put in the time, there is so much you can do with your dog. Some people just have a dog, walk it or play with it in the yard, but you can go out into the world and enjoy it with your dog. There is so much more that we can do with them than just to let them be dogs.