Perhaps the most controversial movie about a dog ever?

It sounds like it would be a great movie to watch .... but I never realized that dogs could see color to that extent. I figured you could train a dog to fear/hate people wearing hats, or carrying canes, etc. but I had no idea they could even see skin color.
 
Joyce

i never thought so either. but i realized that moca seems to be generally afraid of black people. it's really weird. i'm not trying to offend anyone here by the way. i also don't know why. i don't know her history or if it even has anything to do with that... hmm....

I've had plenty of Black friends who have told me that it's quite common for idiot crackers to teach their dogs to sic anyone not white. This has come up lots of times because my dogs are always with me in public. With Sofia looking wolfy and Stevie looking rottie I certainly got my fair share of people crossing the street. I had more than one Black friend who told me that until I told them my dogs were friendly that they were afraid just from prior experience/force of habit.

Generally as with anything the earlier you expose a dog to MANY kinds of people the better off it will be. Dogs do see people's skin color...and it's actually quite easy to differentiate a fair person from a dark one from a distance if you think about it.
 
I read several books on dog training when I was new to dogs and they all made mention of exposing the puppy to people of as many races and cultures as possible. If you think about it....cultural differences can vary from skin color, mode of dress, way of speaking (LOUD vs soft, fast vs slow, hand talking or not), diet, etc. ALL these things would be something a dog..cued in to much more subtle differences in scent, hearing, and even vision...than we ourselves are...would pick up on.
 
If a dog never sees a person with 'differences' of any kind...how would they know what to do?...and what the proper reponse is? they might know it's a person...but it's not like anyone THEY'VE ever seen...lol. So then it's up to the owner to dictate what the proper response should be. It can be difficult tho because in many parts of the world certain races are simply not often seen...be it white or black or anything else.

hmm, yeah, that makes sense..

When we first got Conrad, he was generally nonplussed about short, dark-complected people. They wigged him out and made him pee himself. It may be that his original owners were black and their kids (and/or their neighbor's kids) abused him, or it could also be that the original owners encouraged him to act that way. Given where we were living when we got him, it could go either way.

I thought Slick was completely "people proofed" in that he's been exposed (and shows no reaction ) to every sort of person found in a big city.   I was shocked the other morning when he actually growled at someone!  Granted, it was a puppy-bluff type of growl, but a growl nonetheless.  It was the only type of person that Slick had NEVER seen in his 1+ year in NYC...  obese.  Not just heavy, but morbidly obese - the poor guy had such a difficult time walking it literally took him 5 minutes to walk 1/4 of a block.   Slick was just responding to the fact that this person looked so incredibly different than anyone he'd ever seen.  

I think it's generally the same idea as the need to socialize dogs with kids.  There are a lot of different people out there, and granted, we all understand that none is better than the other, but it's an undeniable fact that different kinds of people look certain ways.  And some kinds of people are more common in certain areas.  I know the town I grew up in doesn't have a huge diversity ratio, and I really just never ever thought to make an effort to socialize my dogs to people of different races.  Nikki gets a little uncomfortable around certain kinds of people, mostly really tall men (especially with hats), really burly men, and sometimes black people.  We don't know her history so it's unclear whether or not her past could have something to do with it, or maybe just our lack of socialization.  Cairo is a little less huffy about the whole thing, but I don't think he's totally comfortable with them either.  The idea of it actually makes me a little embarassed because it seems like I have a racist dog sometimes [&:] 

That sounds like an interesting movie...is it readily available in video stores do you know?

ORIGINAL: Nikki_Burr

That sounds like an interesting movie...is it readily available in video stores do you know?

I found it on ebay. They say it was never released in any form in the US. You can buy the VHS or DVD, but you have to make sure your player can play foreign material. Your DVD player would have to have a region 0 (all formats) code, most players sold in the US are region 1 (US, Canada, and US territories). I don't know how to tell if a VCR is compatible.

I am positive I saw that movie in the theatre.  I went with my two girlfriends (sisters) and their mom.  We did not know what the movie was about until we saw it - I would have been 15 at the time.  I was living in Michigan at the time.
 
I don't remember all of it, but I remember feeling incredibly sad when it was over.  I couldn't just leave the theatre, we were 40 miles from home and I didn't drive. 
 
It's horrible what people do to each other...[&o]

[linkhttp://shop.vendio.com/cindysboots/item/811049534/index.html]http://shop.vendio.com/cindysboots/item/811049534/index.html[/link]
 
One place cited as having a good version to buy, here's a blurb about someone else's means to get a copy..
 
"I got tired of waiting for an official release of this, and decided it would never happen, and I bought two Asian DVDs of it from ebay last month. They are surprisingly good quality and uncut versions from what I can tell, made in Asia from a European source that could possibly be a high quality PAL video source, likely British since there are no subtitles, and one that was converted to DVD with care. They have a white cover with the eyes of the dog peering out, and the title WHITE DOG, and underneath are three chinese symbols meaning "white colored dog", and in the bottom right corner in English, "trained to kill". They are full-screen format but they are of much better quality than I expected, no color fading like in 16mm print copies, and played on any of my DVD machines including the older ones. Do not purchase the DVDs with subtitles, they are not of as good a quality as this one is. You also may see a DVD like this without the three chinese symbols, which are duplicates of this DVD and the symbols were removed from the artwork, do not know if they are good or not.

This was a good review by a viewer:
 
"White Dog is often mentioned on lists of all-time most controversial films, and there's a good reason for that. Samuel Fuller's film is controversial because it confronts the theme of racism head on, and succeeds where modern films such as 'Crash' fail in that it actually makes you think. Rather than actually being 'about' racism, White Dog tells a story and lets the themes flow; thus meaning that the audience is allowed to see the themes shining through, rather than being beaten over the head with them. The film is really clever and is based on a premise that isn't immediately obvious. In fact, if it wasn't for a series of little niggles; this film would be an absolute masterpiece. The problems with the film are largely down to the execution, as Samuel Fuller uses too many close-up shots; and the scenes where the title animal attacks in particular suffer from poor editing, which means that it's sometimes difficult to tell exactly what's going on and most of the time gave me a headache. Furthermore, the plot doesn't move particularly well and the film can seem like it isn't going anywhere at times.

It's a good job, then, that Fuller utilises his themes so well. Racism isn't a subject that interests me generally (mostly because of tacky, sentimental dross like Crash), but the plot here is used in such a way that it's impossible not to be taken in by it. We follow a young aspiring actress that accidentally runs a dog over. After becoming attached to it, she decides to take it in; but pretty soon the dog attacks someone, and she finds out that aside from being a white dog, it's also a 'White Dog'; a dog used by white people to kill blacks. The main reason why this film is so good is down to the title animal. Here we have an entity that is entirely innocent of its crimes; the guilty party being the racist that trained him. By letting us see what the dog is capable of, but making sure we know that the dog is only doing what it has been programmed to do ensures that the true horror of racism is allowed to shine through; as well as the futility of hatred down to skin colour. Films like White Dog are few and far between; here we have a movie that dares to tell a story despite its implications, and a movie that forces its audience to think about their own prejudices. It's just sad that we live in a world where films like Crash win Oscars while films like White Dog are banished into obscurity. Highly recommended!"

My friend and I watched it on HBO when I was in the seventh grade. I found the premise interesting as well, and it's a great film to analyze. As for my dog, she seems to be more nervous around men.

Seems like I've seen it or part of it at some point in time.
 
Here's some more infor on it:
 
[linkhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084899/]http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084899/[/link]