Top Dog Family Pooch On ‘Frazier’ Was Nothing But Trouble Until Finding His Calling As Eddie

Moose was almost too smart for his own good.

The rambunctious, high-energy dog had already destroyed two houses by the time Mathilde de Cagny saved him from himself. Now he’s a TV star, whose talents portraying family dog Eddie have helped make the NBC sitcom “Frasier” a top-10 hit.

Moose is a more amiable pup now than when de Cagny’s company, Birds and Animals Unlimited, adopted him five years ago from a Florida family that had reached wit’s end. He was 2, a tiny terror who refused to be housebroken and would not be tamed.

“This dog had a mind of his own,” de Cagny, who has been training animals for 12 years, says from the “Frasier” set. “He was a dog who was not really into people. … He was born to be trouble. We were the last hope for this dog.”

Blame his intelligence. Moose is a Jack Russell Terrier, a smart but feisty breed that needs a lot of attention. Jack Russells are not dogs to be left alone in an apartment all day. The owner who makes that mistake will return to a home destroyed by a 15-pound tornado.

De Cagny knew she had a challenge on her hands, and she has the nipped ankles to prove it.

Work was Moose’s salvation. De Cagny, whose company supplies animal actors to movies and TV shows, lavished attention on him and began training him for show business.

He loved it and proved a quick study.

“I put a lot of play into it,” she says. “He’s so gutsy. He’s not afraid of anything.

“This is a dog that needed to be busy. Now he puts all his energy into his work mode.”

Turning Moose into a loving pet was more difficult. De Cagny describes him as having a “cat attitude.”

He was standoffish. He didn’t enjoy being petted.

She began performing therapeutic massage and acupressure, giving him long, deep back rubs. Moose responded. Now, she says, “he’s really, really sweet.”

“Frasier,” which debuted in 1993, is Moose’s first and only job. There are no movie deals in the offing.

He and de Cagny are on the set four days a week, with Wednesdays and weekends off. Moose learns his part once and then lets his son, 1-1/2-year-old Enzo, act as his stand-in. His human colleagues, who apparently don’t catch on as fast as he does, rehearse for days.

“Moose gets bored because he’s so smart,” de Cagny says. Enzo is almost as smart as Moose. “They never forget what they’ve been taught.”

During filming, de Cagny is hiding off camera about 15 to 20 feet away from her charge, signaling his tricks with her hands. Jump on the couch. Up in the chair. Such routine tricks are called “patterning.”

Different dogs - de Cagny keeps seven actor/pet dogs at her Venice, Calif., home - respond to different rewards. Golden retrievers like to play. Their favorite reward is a tennis ball.

Moose responds to food treats.

“He’s such a chow hound,” de Cagny says.

Although snooty Frasier Crane (played by Kelsey Grammer) openly snubs Eddie, in real life Moose is a popular member of the cast, the only one who gets his belly scratched. Little Enzo, his dad’s spitting image, has taken a particular shine to John Mahoney, who plays Frasier’s father, Martin.

One day, if the series continues past Moose’s prime, Enzo will take his place as Eddie. At age 7, Moose has about three more working years in him. But his career will never really end.

“They don’t like to retire,” says de Cagny. “The hardest thing is for them not to be on sets anymore.”