Reel Dogs

Tag: famous dogs

  • Muro

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    Brought to America from Belgium in the late 1920s after having been trained as a working military dog in his home country, Muro found an outlet for his many skills in Hollywood. Film studios were quick to capitalize on his background, as well as the recent memory of the Great War, and publicized Muro as…

  • Tuffy

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    Before Chaser, the Border Collie who knew hundreds of objects by name in the 2010s, there was Tuffy, the Hollywood dog who stunned John Hopkins University scholars by correctly identifying and retrieving around fifty unique objects in the 1930s. As a puppy, Tuffy was given to Gerhardt Orvedahl, South Dakota cowboy, while he recovered from…

  • Bunk

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    During the rise of canine performers like Luke, Teddy, and Strongheart in silent-era Hollywood, Jack Hoxie was a noted rodeo-cowboy-turned-actor in westerns, gaining his first feature-film credit in 1919 after many shorts. In 1923 Hoxie sent away to Australia for a pregnant Australian Shepherd with the goal of raising the pups to be performing dogs.…

  • Dog of the Wild

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    ✯ Heroes of the Northwest ✯ Since the first major Hollywood movies casting dogs in the starring roles, like Baree, Son of Kazan (1918) and The Silent Call (1921), the dog of the wilderness concept became ubiquitous with dog movies and canine movie stars. Strongheart, Rin-Tin-Tin, Peter the Great, and nearly all of the early…

  • Jean

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    Laurence Trimble, today remembered more for Strongheart, reportedly got his first film gig for his Rough Collie (or Scotch Collie at the time) simply by being in the right place at the right time. He’d actually come to Vitagraph Studios in New York to write an article on movie making, but ended up offering his…

  • Blair

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    It’s important to remember when we talk about the first dog movie star that he wasn’t only the first in the canine world. Catapulted into fame in 1905, Blair was already famous before the first human film star, Florence Lawrence, appeared in her debut motion picture in 1906. Blair, a Collie, was the first movie…

  • Coffey and Bobby

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    Coffey was one of the stars of the German adaptation of The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton. An Australian Shepherd born in April 2005, Coffey landed his first photo-shoot job at six months old. After a couple of commercials, it was six years before he snagged the role of “Timmy” through a German animal talent…

  • Old Yeller

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    Some of the most famous dog movies ever made starred rescue dogs. “Old Yeller” was no exception. Spike, a huge Labrador Retriever/Mastiff mix, was adopted by Frank Weatherwax (trainer of Lassie) from the Van Nuys Animal Shelter in California for $3.00. After his first film, Old Yeller (1957), Spike appeared on The Mickey Mouse Club…

  • Golden Retriever

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    Page under construction! The title links will take you to Amazon movie pages (Reel Dogs earns a referral fee at no cost to you) or, for rarer titles, alternative sources for the films. Air Bud * Year: 1997 * Country: Canada/US * Breed content: High Starring the immortal Buddy and launching a huge Golden franchise.…

  • White German Shepherd Dog

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    Page under construction! The title links will take you to Amazon movie pages (Reel Dogs earns a referral fee at no cost to you) or, for rarer titles, alternative sources for the films. Kelly and Me * Year: 1957 * Country: US * Breed content: High If you can only see one movie with a…