Yellow accompanies Angus while the boy delivers newspapers. At one of the homes they encounter a very aggressive Rottweiler on a chain. The dog starts barking and growling at Angus. Yellow attempts to defend Angus and is about to do battle with the Rottweiler when Angus distracts the Rottweiler by throwing a newspaper on the lawn, which the Rottweiler goes after. To get the normally mellow Rottweiler-actor in the mood for the scene, the trainer jumped around and waved at the dog until the dog responded to the bizarre antics of his trainer.
When Yellow and Angus are ashore they play and forage for food, digging for clams on the beach. In reality, rather than digging for clams, the dog-actor was digging for doggie snacks buried under the sand.
Angus and Yellow come to a barrier which will be the most formidable challenge of their odyssey. In order to continue their journey home, they must cross from one high cliff to another by way of a fallen tree which spans the dizzying gap between the two cliffs. The tree is one-hundred-fifty feet above a rapidly flowing river. Angus gathers his courage and attempts to cross the tree-bridge. Yellow is reluctant to cross it and waits on one end as Angus makes his way to the middle and calls to Yellow to join him. Angus gets Yellow to the middle by way of a make-shift safety harness that he has made for his beloved pet. Yellow carefully inches his way to Angus. Just as he reaches Angus in the middle of the bridge, a rescue helicopter appears overhead, spots them and begins their rescue. A rescuer comes down a rope which dangles from the hovering helicopter. He scoops up the weakened Angus, who is in very poor shape. Yellow, misunderstanding the rescuers intent, barks and sinks his teeth into the rescuer's leg and holds on as the trio are lifted toward the helicopter. Unfortunately, he loses his grasp and plummets toward the water far below. This was the most dramatic scene in the film. The scene was filmed in many cuts. Some of it was filmed at the actual location where, what appeared to be a fallen tree, was two steel girders covered over to look like a fallen tree. The girders spanned the 150 foot high cliffs. The girders had hollow areas inside where, unseen by the camera, wranglers could coach the dogs who had safety lines attached at all times. Several of the Labs were filmed for this scene and each was secured with a safety line whenever they were on or near the tree bridge. Only the animatronic Yellow was used for the long fall from the tree toward the water. Any filming involving the helicopter was done on a parking lot. The paved area of the lot below the helicopter was padded with huge blocks of foam three to four feet deep. It was at this location that the dog was filmed attacking the rescuer's leg which was padded, and also where the dog loses his grasp and falls, with the dog/actor falling just a few feet onto the very thick padding. Since this scene was shot in many cuts, they were able to film much of the rescue via the hanging rope without the helicopter being there and with the trio dangling from the rope which was attached to a stationary crane, not a helicopter. Dakotah did some of this scene, but the more aggressive Schroeder did most of the attack segment quite naturally with only a little verbal encouragement from his trainer. After the long shot of the animatronic Yellow plummeting toward the water, the film cuts quickly to a close up of Yellow landing in the water. This stunt was also performed by Schroeder, who jumped from a height of six to eight feet to fetch a ball his trainer had thrown into the water. Schroeder has been prepped for this stunt by jumping off a dock/platform into water. Of course, being a Lab, he was comfortable working in water. Additional footage was taken of him jumping onto a foam pad from a height of about three feet.
The helicopter that performs the Search and Rescue Mission is CH-113 "Labrador" of 442 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force based at Comox BC.
Two variations on the Yellow Lab Rescue theme presented.