Response to Plague Dogs

This film was an animation about two dogs that started out at a research facility and ended up escaping. The movie followed the two dogs, Ralph and Snitter, through their adventure. I think the goal of this film was to show people the side of the dogs in hope of inspiring more sympathy for animals. Even though the movie was somewhat harsh in presentation, I believe this movie did inspire me to have more sympathy for animals because it showed more of how the animals feel.

The movie starts out showing how Ralph is being tested for endurance by having him in a deep container of water and making him swim for his life. Once Ralph gets so exhausted, he drowns. Then, he is taken out of the tank with a hook and resuscitated just so he can do it again. This seems so cruel, and I feel so bad for the dog. I don’t really see how this is necessary. While watching this, I wanted to cry and the question came to mind that would the “whitecoats” want this done to them.

Then, Snitter was a dog who they performed brain surgery on which made him unable to determine the subjective from the objective. The “whitecoats” were then going to study him to see how it affected him. Snitter was once owned by someone, but his master was killed by a bus which was somewhat Snitter’s fault. Throughout the movie, the effect of the surgery was seen by Snitter’s flashbacks to his old life with his master. These flashbacks interfere with his normal life. I fell sorry for this dog as well because he doesn’t know what is real and what isn’t at all times. I don’t think that people should be able to mess with his brain because this totally changed his way of life. In my opinion, they lessened his quality of life.
While the two dogs are escaping, the images of other animals that were being experimented on were shown. This made me so much sadder for these animals especially since the monkey had to sit in a metal cylinder all alone. That wouldn’t have been a fulfilling life and probably was a very miserable life. I am glad that the dogs were able to escape.

After their escape, they roamed the hills and mountains trying to fin food. They ended up having to kill sheep in order to survive. For this, the people got really mad and wanted to kill the dogs. I think this is mean because all the dogs were trying to do was survive just like any other animal or human would do.
I think Snitter had really bad luck especially when he killed the man that was trying to be nice to him. He thought he was not supposed to have a master after that. The poor dog was just having bad luck and because of it he beats himself up about it.

I thought it was ironic that the fox that was called the Todd was depicted as a sly and cunning animal. This shows how many animals have a certain stereotype attached to them which is why animals are often used as symbols. Some stereotyping is seen in Snitter since he is a smaller dog he is seen as more sophisticated than Ralph.

Overall, I think this movie gave me a better appreciation of animals and their feelings and struggles. A lot of the situations I saw as comparable to human situations. Many of the feelings of the dogs could be the same feelings that humans would feel in the same situation. I think people get a better appreciation of things when they can be related to themselves or if they are useful to humans.