Customer Reviews

National Geographic's Those Wonderful Dogs [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A fascinating and sometimes moving account of the relationship between dog and man. From the miracle of the Iditarod sled race, to performing service for the disabled, to finding buried victims of disaster, this account gives the viewer a rare look at the subtle and close relationship between us and our canine brothers. A very fine and informative account to be enjoyed by animal lovers or animal lovers to be.

I was so glad to find this video because I don't think you can get it on DVD. It is fascinating and educational. I show it to my students. The vendor selling this item delivered it speedily.

Bought this for my young granddaughter, who loves to watch animals in all shapes and sizes. It's difficult to find nature films that don't include the requisite scenes of animals ripping into each other's flesh, and this film at least succeeded there, with one exception. It's also difficult to find nature films suitable for children, which don't include animated cartoons figures and puppets with goofy voices, that relentlessly pop-up on the screen, singing and saying cutsie-pie observations to the accompaniment of zany sound-effects. This film succeeded here, too.

Problem is, I was looking for a film that was entertaining to watch, and here is where Those Wonderful Dogs was not so wonderful. Watching this was *almost* like a return to my 1960s childhood elementary school career, when watching educational movies meant being corraled into the auditorium to watch grainy, washed-out film footage, narrated by that stock, monotone man-voice that we all recoginze (which has since become the object of many late-night parodies). I used the word *almost* up there because, well, Wonderful Dogs wasn't quite that bad, but it was darned close.

And I'm the sort of person who ordinarily thrives on dull, by today's standards. I really wanted to like this movie, and I tried. Granted, it had its good moments (such as the fascinating system of whistle commands the sheep farmer used to direct his dogs left, right, forward, slow, fast, etc.) But the good moments were few and far between, leaving my mind to wander far from all dogs, and back to the memory of those long-ago oak trees outside the auditorium windows, which probably had much more to do with my love of nature than all those monotonic films put together.

At the very least, a good nature film should give the viewer a realistic look at animals, and should not spoil the view with lousy narration. This one grades a C+ on both counts.