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The glamorous dog often stars in adverts and is chauffeured around to shoots and performs all kinds of tricks – as long as he’s tempted with tasty sausages. 

The Mirror reports that Barney has become a real star in the ad world and has even featured on one for Tails.com.

But it’s no surprise, with star quality running in the family.

Barney’s owner, Donna Louise Bryan, works as an actor and a voice over artist.

But the dog’s talent was discovered by pure chance. 

Donna was working on one of her own acting jobs, when she was filming an advert for a pet product and was accompanied by a dog that had to perform some complicated tricks.

But the pup wasn’t on form that day and refused to scratch on command.

Knowing that Donna had a dog, producers asked if Barney might cut the mustard.

Donna messaged her partner Mark, who was at home with Barney, explaining that their pup had a chance to be the star of the show – but he would have to master a new trick first.

To her surprise, Mark soon replied with a video of Barney scratching on command.

“He came on set, and kind of stole the show,” Donna recalls.

In fact, he stole the show to such an extent that the crew wanted more of the Banbury-born pooch. 

“At the end of the day, [the crew] came to me and said, ‘that was really, really great today. We’d really love to have you back tomorrow.’”

I said, “Ooh, OK – I was only booked for two days. I’ll speak to my agent.” And they said, “No, no, no – it’s not you we want tomorrow. We’d like another day with Barney!”

And he’s never looked back since. 

“Sometimes, say they want to do something with me and they don’t want Barney on set, we have to stop him from sneaking onto set because he always wants the focus to be on him,” Donna says.

And Barney’s new-found fame has led to him turning into a bit of a diva behind the scenes.

“If we’re having dinner, we turn around and he’s just doing tricks, looking to see who’s noticed him.

“We always joke that one day he’s going to go past on a tricycle just to get our attention.”

Barney truly gets the star treatment at his job, even more so than his fellow human actors.

“You have to be dictated by the dog – you can’t tell it what to do. You have to make sure you’re providing the right environment for the dog, so they’ll be happy and willing to do it,” Donna notes about why she admires her canine colleagues.

“Sometimes I’m on set, and it’s cold, I’m doing the same thing over and over again, and I’m hungry. And all I want to say is, “I want to stop now, I’m hungry!” You can’t do that, obviously. But animals, they do. When they’ve had enough, they just tell you, and they walk off. I absolutely love that.”

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As well as having “special sausages” to eat on set, Barney even has his own bank account for the money he earns from acting jobs, which Donna uses to treat him. “I’m his chauffeur, he gets driven around,” she says. “I’m his agent, I take all his calls. I do all his Instagram.” 

It’s still early days for Barney – but he has his sights set on Hollywood. “He hasn’t done a film yet, so that would be quite good,” says Donna. “But he’s only been doing it for less than a year, so he’s at the start of his career, really.”

When he’s not at his day job, Barney plays the most important role of all – that of the perfect family pet. At their home in Oxfordshire, “he’s just a happy, lovely, loving little dog,” Donna smiles. “He’s just made my life complete.”

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