Doggy stars

With our expertise in dog behaviour management we regularly provide suitably trained dogs for use in Television and Film Productions.

We can provide any breed either to work with actors or just appear in the background.

We are also happy to offer the services of Dog & Handler Team, - you just let us know the breed of dog & describe the handler you are looking for and we’ll do the rest.

Risk Assessments and Health & Safety policies are always followed as we never put the safety of our dogs, trainers or surrounding crew at risk.

If you want to send us a script or details of the job, if required we are happy to visit the set or meet with the directors prior to the shoot to ensure all contingencies are taken care of before filming begins.

We are happy to supply trained dogs for any production so please contact us for further details.

Darren James on TV

As a highly experienced dog trainer Royvon Director Darren James has featured widely in television productions including:

Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway Challenge

9 Million television viewers and a live studio audience eagerly awaited the unveiling of the Saturday Night Takeaway Challenge between its co-stars, widely popular Ant & Dec. As many of the show followers know, Ant & Dec are completely unaware of the challenges presented to them each week. The producers wanted to set Ant & Dec a challenge of obedience training a young dog. The expert brought in to provide the one-on-one training was Darren James, of Royvon Dog Training School s. Teaching the necessary handling skills to a dog's owner is a very important feature of the Royvon course structure.

Ant and Dec were introduced to two, very adorable, and very energetic chocolate Labrador retriever puppies, "Ronnie" and "Pudding" (supplied by Royvon). In just one week both Ant & Dec were to be given a crash-course study on the art of dog obedience training!

The Challenge itself consisted of a basic obedience obstacle course - in two minutes time, the handler and their puppy are awarded one point each for a total of seven exercises, including, and in order: sit, sit/stay, roll-over, recall, run through tunnel, climb up and down steps, and wait at gate for permissions to pass through before stopping the clock with a final sit on the Saturday Night Takeaway logo. With dedicated training from Darren and enthusiastic effort by Ant and Dec both puppies successfully completed six of the seven exercises, however Dec & Pudding were declared winners based on their ability to execute the drill in less time.

Underdog Show 2007 ( BBC 1)

Royvon Dog Training School's Managing Director, Darren James and Training Supervisor, Hannah Bird were hand-selected amongst six other of the nation's leading dog trainers to compete in a brand new entertainment show for the BBC entitled, "The Underdog Show"!

Eight children, assigned to eight different dog trainers had each adopted a rescue dog to compete live in basic obedience, agility courses and doggy dancing! The show was hosted by Julian Clary with his panel of esteemed judges, where each week one child and their dog were voted out of the competition.

The competing children ranged from year 5 to year 8 at school, with the rescue dogs supplied by the Dogs Trust. The dog trainers were chosen following an extensive interview and screening process. Darren was paired with 12 year old Leigh and 3 year old Ruby, a Patterdale Terrier; Hannah and 12 year old Hayley competed with 11 month old Mercedes, a Collie cross breed.

Underdog Show 2008 (Living TV)

Royvon’s Darren James was selected as one of the five dog obedience trainers for the second annual "The Underdog Show". The "Underdogs" consisted of 10 celebrities, each paired with a rescue dog from the Dogs Trust, and one expert dog trainer.

The competition ran for 10 weeks and included agility, tricks, heelwork to music and other impressive canine performances. Darren was paired with celebrities Camilla Dallerup and Javine Hylton. Many people will remember Camilla Dallerup from her six - incredible season series of Strictly Come Dancing and actually winning the show in 2008.

Darren also trained Javine Hylton with Bouncer, a 12 month old Labrador Retriever. Javine is also a multi-talented celebrity having earned recognition performing with The Cardigans, Tom Jones, The Honeyz and Damage. Darren trained Camilla with Chico, a three year old collie cross German Shepherd dog and both dog and handler performed excellently to reach the semi-finals of the competition..

More about Darren….

Darren James is a celebrity is his own right as a successful dog breeder, handler, trainer, businessman and entrepreneur.

To find out more about Darren or to contact him for any TV or promotional work please click here.