Anaheim Man Says Secret of Animal Training Is Use Their Pace, Not Yours

Bryan Renfro had been training his parrot to do tricks, when one day he asked, “Show me how much you love me.”

The parrot put his head on Renfro’s chest, “but I didn’t train him to do that. He did it on his own.”

Renfro decided he had arrived as an animal trainer.

“I knew I had a career,” said the Anaheim Vietnam veteran, who admits that “the only training I’ve ever had in my life was learning how to kill.”

Renfro’s first job after his Army discharge in 1970 was driving a truck, but he later hired on to clean animal cages at Universal Studios, where he eventually helped train animals.

He became so good at training animals and explaining how he did it that Renfro became host of the Universal Studios Tour Animal Actors Stage, a role he played for 12 years.

“Working at Universal was college for me. That’s where I went to school to learn my career,” said Renfro, who was once afraid of speaking in front of anyone.

“If I had to give a report in high school, I wouldn’t show up,” he said. “But acting helped me cure that problem.”

So much, in fact, that Renfro has become a favorite at talk shows, including three appearances on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.” He usually brings an animal with him on such appearances.

“I’ve got a Dizzy Dean style of talking,” Renfro said. “People loved him for the way he talked, and that’s the kind of way I want my talks to go.”

For the last four years, Renfro has been training animals for their roles in films and TV, as well as establishing himself as a character actor, usually cast as the bad guy.

He appears as a dog trainer for “Rin Tin Tin: Canine Cop,” a syndicated TV show, and he doubles for actors attacked by the dog.

While he hopes to make a name for himself as an actor and a stunt man, he said: “I’ll always be an animal trainer. It’s something I can do really well. I have always loved animals.”

In fact, he thinks animals are much like people.

“They all have different personalities and intelligence levels,” he said, noting that he generally seeks happy and outgoing animals. “It’s more difficult to train animals that are timid and shy. It only takes a few days to find out if you have a dog or cat that is smart.” When he selects animals to train, “you teach them at their own learning level and at their own pace, just like a person,” Renfro said.

For 10 years, Richardo Muniz, 36, has been driving a 50-ton commercial rubbish truck and has racked up 700,000 miles without causing an accident.

That helped him become nominated as Driver of the Year by the National Solid Waste Management Assn. Nationally, 125,000 drivers were eligible for the award.

The Santa Ana driver did not win, “but it was an important nomination, especially to his peers here,” said Joe Urban, operations manager of Dewey’s Rubbish Service in Irvine, where Muniz works.

Besides a plaque, belt buckle and cap, Muniz received a $100 bonus.

“He’s a role model to others,” Urban said. “Besides being one of our best drivers, he’s a gentle man.”

Boy Scout Grant A. Mizell thought Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Boy Scouting, would be a good topic for a history-project competition being promoted by the Orange County Boy Scout Council.

The 12-year-old Mission Viejo boy took four months to film the project with his parents’ video camera and won second place, but more important, it is being shown at the Boy Scout Jamboree, which opened Tuesday in Ft. A.P. Hill, Va.

And at the jamboree, famed film maker Steven Spielberg, an Eagle Scout, is introducing the requirements for a new cinematography merit badge.

“That will be the first badge I go for,” said Grant, who also hopes to become an Eagle Scout.