Being in a movie is an arduous task for actors. There are hundreds of people running around on set while doing a plethora of different tasks. There are endless side conversations happening around you. You start a scene and must stop seconds later, often without the opportunity to get fully engaged with the material.

Now, imagine adding another complex variable to it -- a dog.

In Director Boaz Yakin's upcoming "Max," the cast was not only tasked with telling an emotionally complex story about losing a son in the military, but sharing that loss with a dog.

Or, in the case of the actual process, many dogs. For the leading character, Max, Yakin and company worked with numerous dogs playing the role of the character. The dog most often represented in the film was called Carlos, while other dogs filled in with specific tasks on set to make the coordination and filming process easier.

"It's a highly technical exercise working with the dog, working with trainers that are teaching them behaviors. It's super technical and at the same time you are trying to make a film that is highly emotionally affecting," Yakin said to Latin Post about making a film that featured the canines so heavily.

"So you really have to trust that the actors you are working with, [that] their emotions inter cut with whatever you are doing with the dog [and] is going to produce the effect that you need. You don't really know that until you really start editing it together."

"Max" tells the story of a trained military working dog, Max, whose trainer is killed during a military ambush in Afghanistan. Max is then left in the custody of his trainer's family, specifically in the care of the rebellious teenager Justin Wincott, played by Josh Wiggins. Throughout the film, Justin and Max develop a bond that is constantly tested by forces outside his home as well as within the household.

Wiggins spends the most screen time with the dogs and he admitted that it was an adjustment process for him working on set with them.

"I mean whenever you're doing a scene and the dog may mess up or something. The trainer has to tell him mid-take to direct him," Wiggins said. "Whenever you're in the middle of a scene and you hear someone yelling 'stay' or 'sit' it is distracting at first, but you get used to it and it trains you to block everything."

Actors get opportunities to bond with one another from constantly working through scenes and spending time together on set and during breaks from filming. However, in a film where the co-star is constantly a new animal, it could appear to be difficult to find that bond. Wiggins begged to differ.

"I have been around dogs my whole life. I have three dogs and I love every one of them," Wiggins stated. "It's pretty easy to bond with these kinds of dogs because you are working with them a lot. It's like bonding with another co-star. I bonded with all of them pretty quickly."

Lauren Graham and Thomas Haden Church, who play Justin's parents Pamela and Ray noted that their experience with the dogs was slightly different.

"In general we spend a lot of the movie being unsure about Max. And that was easy because the dogs were really intense and impressive but not necessarily the most cuddly because they are working dogs," Graham said. "It was a pretty... similar to my relationship on set with all of the dogs."

Church's Ray, the patriarch of the Wincott family, has the most contentious relationship with the dog in the film. Church agreed with Graham about the real-life circumstances relating well to the film. He even mentioned the animals being "aggressive hardworking dogs."

"I would agree with that completely. My relationship with Max is a nuisance I have to deal with," he said. "It is not just this hard exterior. I know from the onset that he represents a part of our son and so there is a grudging alliance that goes on and develops as the movie develops.

The relationship between the two reaches a low point when the grieving father comes close to ending the dog's life in a tense tête-à-tête that features Ray pointing a gun at Max. Church noted that while it was not the easiest scene for him to film, he felt comfortable because of the emotional reality of the scene.

"It's not your favorite thing to do," he said. "But if you are trying to represent authentically real life and I believe in the moment that this dog may or may not have betrayed my son in combat. ... That's the worst form of treachery. In that moment he thinks it's justifiable."

"Max" hits theaters on June 26.