When I first watched White Dog, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I understood that it was a film about racism and that it questions whether or not racism is a treatable or incurable condition. At the time, I felt like I needed to just let it soak in, to just absorb it all and wrap my thoughts around it.
It starts like this: a young actress, Julie, is driving along a dark road and accidentally hits a white German Shepherd dog. After she gets the dog treated at a vet, she takes him home whilst trying to find the owners. The dog protects her one night and she decides to adopt it, not knowing that the dog was trained to attack African Americans. After realizing that there's something not quite right with the dog, she brings him to a dog trainer, Carruthers, whom, at first, tells to kill the dog. But another trainer, Keys (who is African American), undergoes the task of retraining the dog.
So can the dog be retrained or not? To be completely honest, I couldn't completely buy into the story. Yes, I find it believable that a dog can be trained in such a way, but at the same time, the reactions from the characters just threw me off. Take Julie, for instance, she's rather defensive of a dog that just attacked her coworker. I get that she has an emotional attachment to the dog, especially since he protects her from a rapist. But I don't really understand why it doesn't seem to strike her as odd when the dog comes back one night, covered in dirt and blood. Don't you think if your dog came home looking like that, wouldn't alarm bells start going off in your head? Truthfully, I found the film interesting. I wouldn't put it up there with my favorites, but at the same time, I wouldn't knock it down either. I just wish the characters were a little more developed. But other than that, I would suggest it just for the question of whether or not learned hatred can be cured.
It starts like this: a young actress, Julie, is driving along a dark road and accidentally hits a white German Shepherd dog. After she gets the dog treated at a vet, she takes him home whilst trying to find the owners. The dog protects her one night and she decides to adopt it, not knowing that the dog was trained to attack African Americans. After realizing that there's something not quite right with the dog, she brings him to a dog trainer, Carruthers, whom, at first, tells to kill the dog. But another trainer, Keys (who is African American), undergoes the task of retraining the dog.
So can the dog be retrained or not? To be completely honest, I couldn't completely buy into the story. Yes, I find it believable that a dog can be trained in such a way, but at the same time, the reactions from the characters just threw me off. Take Julie, for instance, she's rather defensive of a dog that just attacked her coworker. I get that she has an emotional attachment to the dog, especially since he protects her from a rapist. But I don't really understand why it doesn't seem to strike her as odd when the dog comes back one night, covered in dirt and blood. Don't you think if your dog came home looking like that, wouldn't alarm bells start going off in your head? Truthfully, I found the film interesting. I wouldn't put it up there with my favorites, but at the same time, I wouldn't knock it down either. I just wish the characters were a little more developed. But other than that, I would suggest it just for the question of whether or not learned hatred can be cured.