Barcelona Dog Names

In 2015 a movie called Max was released. The movie is about a dog named Max who served with the Marines in Afghanistan. Max's handler is a soldier named Kyle Wincott and he is killed while serving a tour of duty there. Max and Kyle were bonded and after Kyle's death, Max doesn't want to be around anyone except Kyle's little brother Justin. The dog is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, just like a human would. In the movie, the Wincott family decides to take Max in to keep him from being euthanized.

Max is the star of the show undoubtedly. Only in real life, Max's name is Carlos. The dog is named after Carlos Hathcock, a Vietnam war sniper.

Carlos is a Belgian Malinois. It was hard to find a dog of that breed that fit the bill because most Malinois have black markings around their eyes. This prevents people from being able to clearly see their eyes on camera, the window to the soul. Director Boaz Yakin said, "it would be like acting with sunglasses on."

After a nationwide search, producers found Carlos on a farm in Kentucky. Carlos had perfect light facial features, plenty of charisma, and a focused personality. They obtained four other Malinois as well. They were carefully dyed to match Carlos so they could each play the role but Carlos was definitely the lead dog and is in 80% of the scenes featuring Max.

Each of the four dogs had a special role. Pilot was taught to knock people down and play fight; Dude's specialty was jumping, Pax was great at showing his teeth and running, and Jagger was the number one understudy. It took three months of training, of learning to climb walls, and pretending to lunge at people, but they were all finally ready to get the show on the road.

Like many stars, though, Carlos was a bit temperamental.  He'd behave and perform perfectly in rehearsals but then do something different when the cameras were rolling. It worked out okay, though, Yazin said, because often the things Carlos did turned out to be more interesting anyway.

Carlos really got to show off his acting chops in a scene where he had to have a panic attack during a fireworks display and then recover. It was great to see a dog show true emotion while acting. Max is a great movie. It makes you wonder why Carlos was never nominated for an Oscar.