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 both canine royalty and a decorated war dog hero known as Count Muro purely for propaganda value.
A purebred Belgian Tervuren, Muro was surprisingly not the first Belgian Shepherd to take Hollywood by storm. That honor goes to Ranger, a Belgian Malinois who started acting in the mid-1920s. Still an early ambassador for his breed, Muro remains to this day the only major Belgian Tervuren movie star ever. Credited as both Muro and King in his films, he had as many titles and taglines as films, including: Dog Marvel; Emperor of All Dogs; and King the Wonder Dog.
Today, we can only guess at the true number of Muro’s films. Thankfully, he received top billing in a few surviving titles so we still have a record of some of Marvel Dog Muro’s daring deeds.
Untamed Justice (1929) (First known credit, although Muro was probably in small roles before it. This silent film may be one of the thousands that have been lost.)
The Phantom of the North (1929) (Another starring credit and a mostly lost film. Only the first 20 minutes of this film has been preserved.)
The Lone Trail (1932) (A feature film edit of the Sign of the Wolf serial.)
Do you know any more Count Muro films? Or the identity of his trainer? Please let us know!
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 a riding accident. Needing company and distraction, Orvedahl began training the pup to retriever and know objects by name, from coins to potatoes. An Australian Shepherd mixed with either Border Collie or Rough Collie, Tuffy was a born working dog and cowhand, fitting in effortlessly to ranch life while learning more and more, including the skill of leading horses by rein and very long stays over the years at home from 1930 to 1935.
When Orvedahl imagined more and took Tuffy to Hollywood, it wasn’t long before the handsome dog with one ice-blue eye drew attention from a Paramount producer. Tuffy landed his first cameo role before the end of 1935 in Nevada. In 1936 he gained small parts in more western dramas like Drift Fence while his reputation grew so that before the year was out Tuffy would appear in six films, most notably The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, his only Technicolor production, which originally had no part for a dog at all, but one was written in especially for Tuffy.
He went on to act until Brigham Young in 1940, in which he is only seen in a glimpse, before an illness halted his movie career. He died in 1946 at age sixteen.
✯ Known Tuffy Filmography ✯
Early to Bed (1936)
Old Hutch (1936)
Rose of the Rancho (1936)
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936)
The Mighty Treve (1937)
Hawk of the Wilderness (1938) a serial
Phantom Gold (1938)
Pioneer Trail (1938)
Rolling Caravans (1938)
Stagecoach Days (1938)
Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939) a serial
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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. Only one survived in the litter: Bunk.
Bunk, a stocky, rather short-legged blue merle, was Hoxie’s dog from the start, making their partnership as a screen cowboy and his dog naturally convincing. For all the specialty performance skills, Hoxie hired Bert de Marc as Bunk’s personal trainer.
Through his career, which launched in 1924 when Bunk was still a juvenile, he tracked down bad guys, wrangled livestock, and served as a cowboy’s best friend in a score of westerns with Hoxie. Bunk became renowned enough that he even appeared in movies without Hoxie, such as Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come in 1928. He performed into the early 1930s and lived to eighteen years old.
There is an excellent article about Bunk on the website Herding on the Web.
It’s hard to trace all Bunk films since most are lost and his publicity was misleading. Jack Hoxie claimed that Bunk was in most of his (Hoxie’s) feature films, but even if you watch those that survive, Bunk is seldom in evidence. In at least one film (Gold), he was featured in publicity, but only one dog in the distance, who may or may not be Bunk, is ever seen.
Here is his filmography to the best of our knowledge, nearly all of which are lost. The dog in his supposed final film, Law and the Lawless (1932), is tricolored, maybe Bunk’s son, which was not uncommon for canine actors in Hollywood at the time.
Ridgeway of Montana (1924) (first film, for which he received much publicity)
Fighting Fury (1924)
Hidden Loot (1925)
The White Outlaw (1925) (one of Bunk’s only surviving films)
The Demon (1926)
The Fighting Peacemaker (1926)
The Wild Horse Stampede (1926) (surviving only in a film archive in Moscow)
Red Hot Leather (1926)
The Fighting Three (1927)
Grinning Guns (1927)
Heroes of the Wild (1927) (possibly Bunk, billed as “Tornado”)
The Rambling Ranger (1927)
Rough and Ready (1927)
The Western Whirlwind (1927)
Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1928)
Shepherd of the Hills (1928)
Gold (1932) (surviving, but does not appear to show Bunk at all—see notes)
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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 German Shepherd Dog stars played at least one wolfdog, dog raised by wolves, or dog serving humans in the Northwest—such as sled dogs, prospectors’ dogs, or crime-fighting partners of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
This adventure genre, with its brave, almost supernatural archetype hero dogs, and rugged human male leads, was so popular from the 1920s through the 1950s, it deserves its own page. Many of the stars were German Shepherds, many were based on James Oliver Curwood or Jack London novels, but variations on plots and dogs kept stories interesting enough for viewers to come back for more.
Luckily, many of these old films have found DVD or digital release for the first time and can be enjoyed by a new generation of reel dog enthusiasts.
There is even a novel, Shadow of the North, which takes a satirical look at the films and lives of these dogs and trainers in Hollywood during the 1930s:
✯ The Movies ✯
Here are some highlights of the wilderness genre from early feature films to the 1980s.
The Return of Grey Wolf (1926)
Renfrew Of The Royal Mounted (1937) (series)
Snow Dog 1950 (part of series)
Northwest Territory (1951) (part of series)
Nikki: Wild Dog of the North (1961)
The Courage of Kavik, the Wolf Dog (1980)
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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 dog for a leading role.
Jean (1902–1916) became the second Collie movie star, and, in fact, only the second canine movie star in history after Blair of England.
Jean (1902–1916) appeared in at least 25 films, almost all of them shorts, and became the first ever American canine movie star, paving the way for Strongheart, Rin-Tin-Tin, Teddy, Lassie, and all the rest. Only Blair of England, also a Collie, preceded Jean, the Vitagraph Dog.
✯ Known Jean Filmography ✯
If you know more films of Jean’s, please let us know!
Jean and the Calico Doll (1910)
Jean, the Match-Maker (1910)
Jean Goes Foraging (1910)
Jean Goes Fishing (1910)
A Tin-Type Romance (1910)
Jean and the Waif (1910)
Where the Winds Blow (1910)
Her Mother’s Wedding Gown (1910)
Jean Rescues (1911)
When the Light Waned (1911)
The Stumbling Block (1911)
Tested by the Flag (1911)
Auld Lang Syne (1911)
Jean Intervenes (1912)
Playmates (1912)
The Church Across the Way (1912)
Bachelor Buttons (1912)
The Signal of Distress (1912)
Jean and Her Family (1913) – A documentary short.
Jean’s Evidence (1913)
’Fraid Cat (1914)
The Shepherd Lassie of Argyle (1914)
Through the Valley of Shadows (1914) – Possibly Jean’s first feature-length film.
Lost and Won (1915)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1915) – Another feature film at five reels.
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 star in the world. Period.
Belonging to English producer, director, and writer Cecil Hepworth, Blair (like Rin-Tin-Tin years later for Warner Bros.) helped to establish Hepworth and Co. with the massive commercial success of the first film in which he starred, Rescued by Rover.
Cecil Hepworth was one of the best-known and most prolific early British film-makers, producing so many short films through his company, as many as three per week, during Blair’s lifetime (he died in 1914) that it is likely Blair appeared in dozens of movies. We may never know how many, or which ones, however. In 1924, when Hepworth had to sell his studio below value, most of his hundreds of original negatives were melted down to recover the silver in them. Nearly all of Blair’s films have now been lost.
We do know a handful of this pioneering Collie’s filmography, and have the pleasure today of being able to see Rescued by Rover due to its being preserved and now being in the public domain. Even in this case though, it is not the original. Rescued by Rover was such a phenomenal hit across Great Britain and beyond, the first negative wore out and the film had to be reshot twice.
Blair is easy to spot in the few films of his that do survive today. Note the diamond mark on his forehead and the distinct white ruff on the left side, sable on the right.
✯ Known Blair Filmography ✯
If you know more shorts which definitely featured Blair, please let us know!
Alice in Wonderland (1903) – Possibly Blair’s first film. He can only be seen for an instant.
Rescued by Rover (1905) – The film that launched not only Blair’s career, but the whole concept of a narrative dog movie.
Rover Takes a Call (1905) – A curtain call short shown after Rescued by Rover.
Dumb Sagacity (1907) – In which Blair costarred with the horse who played Black Beauty in 1906. (Note “dumb” meant mute at that time.)
The Dog Outwits the Kidnapper (1908) – Similar to Rescued by Rover, but now “Rover” drives the kidnapped girl back home himself. This is one of Blair’s only surviving shorts.
The Dog Thief (1908)
The Dog and the Bone (1909)
The Dog Came Back (1909)
The Shepherd’s Dog (1909) – Blair guides the shepherd to save his daughter from the snow.
The Detective’s Dog (1910)
The Dog Chaperone (1910) – A man must win over the dog before the woman.
Love Me, Love My Dog (1910)
The Dog’s Devotion (1911) – Blair saves a marriage.
Rover the Peacemaker (1911)
Lost in the Woods (1912) – Blair leads lost children home.
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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 agency. Coffey knew over 120 commands thanks to trainer Gordon Krei, and was the proud father of thirteen.
Already mature when the first Fünf Freunde was released in 2012, Coffey stepped back for the third installment a couple years later.
The young tricolor Aussie to take over the role was Bobby, extensively trained for the part by Marco Heyse after he was returned to his breeder by the family who had originally adopted him. Bobby was too much dog for them to handle—but channeled all that energy and spark into his costarring role in Fünf Freunde 3 and more.
Combined films, only released in PAL format:
Fünf Freunde und das Tal der Dinosaurier AKA: Fünf Freunde 5 (2018)
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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 with his costar Kevin Corcoran. He went on to star in two more features, A Dog of Flanders (1959) and The Silent Call (1961), and appear in other films and TV shows including The Westerner (1960).
His legacy lives on today as the poster-dog of one of the best-known dog novels, and films, of all time. You can find the Old Yeller novel here.
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Air Bud * Year: 1997 * Country: Canada/US * Breed content: High
Starring the immortal Buddy and launching a huge Golden franchise. The original film is by far the best and a standout among both Golden Retriever and dog films.
The Trial of Old Drum * Year: 2000 * Country: US * Breed content: High
Originally released as an Animal Planet TV movie, inspired by a true story, although the real dog was a mixed-breed.
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Kelly and Me * Year: 1957 * Country: US * Breed content: High
If you can only see one movie with a white GSD, make it this one.
Yukon Manhunt * Year: 1951 * Country: US * Breed content: High
One of a series of films about white German Shepherd “Chinook” (played by Harvey) and his Royal Canadian Mounted Police sidekick.
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