There are rules regarding how long animals can spend working on a tv or film set, which means that every time there's a starring role to fill the screen time is split between a number of look-a-likes. In the live action 101 Dalmations, Perdy and Pongo were actually played by six different dogs. This is where the animal make-up artist comes in. It's not to make them look good for the cameras, it's to make sure they fool the audience into thinking they're looking at the same beast in every scene. Special animal dye will be used to create the right colour fur and it can also be dotted about the body to add or cover-up identifying patches. Sometimes the make-up artist will be asked to use their skills to create the illusion of an entirely different animal. A common trick is dyeing white horses with black stripes to create zebras - because the real thing is said to be much too temperamental to direct.
