A Dog’s Purpose. Photo: YouTube

A month after TMZ released a video that seemingly showed a terrified dog on the set of A Dog’s Purpose being forced into a pool filled with rushing water against its will for a stunt, an independent investigation has concluded that not only were no animals harmed during the making of the film, but also the viral video was falsified. American Humane Association, the organization who supervised the numerous animals on the set of the family-friendly drama, shared the findings in a lengthy post on their website. “An independent, third-party investigation conducted by a respected animal cruelty expert into the treatment of animals in the filming of A Dog’s Purpose concluded that an edited video given to the gossip site TMZ mischaracterized the events on the set,” a statement read. “The decisions by the individual or individuals who captured and deliberately edited the footage, and then waited longer than 15 months to release the manipulated video only days before the movie’s premiere, raise serious questions about their motives and ethics.”

Numerous animal-rights organizations called for an immediate boycott of the film in the aftermath of the video’s release, with the film’s crew and talent actively speaking out against the accusations of animal cruelty. Though American Humane Association admits that the “handling of the dog in the first scene in the video should have been gentler and signs of stress recognized earlier,” they ultimately concluded the video was edited “for the purpose of misleading the public and stoking outrage.” The film is currently in theaters, and isn’t anything to woof about.