The canines of '101 Dalmatians' take the spotlight

It was a dog day afternoon outside Madison Square Garden, where four animal trainers for "The 101 Dalmatians Musical" were showing off their four-legged charges near the dog stars' tour bus.

Phoenix was doing an "A to B" run, as that point-to-point trained behavior is called. Bella was demonstrating her jumps. And Rascal, the puppy of the group - well, he was just being Rascal, and bolted from his trainer to sniff at a metal barrier between West 33rd Street and the Garden parking lot. A nimble publicist collared the pooch, a half-step ahead of the trainer, before the 1-year-old pup decided to seek fame and fortune in the big city.

But then, he doesn't have to. After 22 weeks of playing the sticks - yes, Appleton, Wis., we mean you, but also Minneapolis; Detroit; Atlanta; Miami; Columbus, Ohio; Boston; Indianapolis; and Providence - Rascal and 14 other canine corps members join a human cast that includes actors in dog costumes at The Theater at Madison Square Garden through April 18.

Onstage they sit, run, manipulate levers, pretend to urinate and basically help bring to life this musical adaptation of Dodie Smith's 1956 children's novel "The Hundred and One Dalmatians" - unrelated to the Disney movies - that's directed by Jerry Zaks, with music by former Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung.

Six of the dogs, such as Spittin' Image aka Envy, and Heartbreak Kid aka DX, are registered with the American Kennel Club. The others were stray or abandoned and come from shelters or rescue groups, often having suffered such canine afflictions as crystals in their urine or heartworm.

"When the producers first called me," says veteran animal trainer Joel Slaven, recalling how his performance dogs got involved in a truck-and-bus tour, unlike the usual stationary shows he helps produce at the various Busch Gardens, SeaWorlds and elsewhere, "I said it can be done. Is it likely to be done? No. How are you going to travel with dogs to a different city every week?" Circuses manage, "but they're small dogs, and not 15 of them."

After being assured the animals would be cared for in a proper manner, Slaven decided "these dogs are some of the stars of the show, and I said they have to be treated like that. And the producers said, 'Well, what do we have to do to make that happen?' "

Get a pop-star bus, it turned out. The 15 dogs - the aforementioned, rounded out by Bert, Forks, Frankie, Gracie, Hanna, Jada, Jackson, Lacy and Stanley - ride and are housed overnight in a 45-foot-long, 7-foot-wide, 131/2-foot high tour bus that, according to company scuttlebutt, previously rolled the Jonas Brothers from town to town. Two trainers, with the four on the tour taking turns, are with them in the bus each night.

Slaven, a lifelong animal lover and trainer, is touchy about taking photos inside the dogs' abode. "It's beautiful inside, but there are kennels. two dogs can stand up and walk around in them, but we have seen many times that somebody will take a picture and put it up on the Internet with a phrase or title under it that is completely ludicrous."

The dogs outside the bus this day seem as shiny and buoyant as bubbles, and their trainers - head Melissa Harris, 33, and Ashley Young, 22; Sandy Long, 23; and Nicole Sill, 28 - are all equally bright-eyed and show a clear bond with their black-and-white bundles of energy. Sill has a biology degree, the rest psychology, and all worked with zoos or veterinarians before joining the 50-plus other trainers with Slaven's St. Cloud, Fla., company.

They play with the dogs, feed them, do "enrichment time" to keep the dogs stimulated with new toys the trainers regularly build, walk them around the block and clean up after them. During down time, the dogs nap or romp in 10-foot-square playpens, two dogs in each.

It's hard to be sure, but the Dalmatians' doggy digs sound spot on.