n addition to verbal commands, he also worked to hand cues, essential for a dog performing in sound films. According to Orr, his training began when he was three months old, and he made his first professional film appearances at the age of one year, in 1932–1933, as a bit player providing "atmosphere." In Orr s book Skippy was shown in a series of photo stills from otherwise unidentified 20th Century Fox films starring Mae Clarke and Mary Carlisle, as well as publicity shots with Wendy Barrie from It s a Small World and Myrna Loy from The Thin Man.[1]