Gross Neglect?

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Yeah, I agree. As an animal lover with three dogs of my own...this is a tough movie to sit through. The poor canine never got a chance. Even when he's evil and covered in blood, I still feel very sorry for him. Some people should just never own pets. This is serious neglect. His owners didn't care about him and no one else ever seemed to really care about him. I don't know how anyone can watch this and not feel bad for the dog at all. He was doomed from the start...

I💖cats and Disneyland!

Man, I felt terrible for the dog. I've had many, and currently have a great Pyrenees.

Cujo was never evil, just terribly sick. I was upset that they didn't notice the wound on his nose. They could've at least tried to clean it, even if the couldn't afford the vet. That's so basic.

As for not having a rabies shot, that was a big mistake. In the story, Cujo's family looked pretty poor, and unfortunately in my rural town, there are LOTS of non-poor people that don't bother to get their dogs shots or fixed, so it was believable. The young boy who owned him noticed something was up (a little too late) and then had to leave town. The dad wasn't in tune with the dog much, and sometimes dogs get lethargic from eating grass or something. When they feel sick they often won't eat, which is often the first thing you notice when a dog gets sick (unless they, y'know, have a big open wound on their face).

The final kicker was when the mom though she'd killed Cujo with the stake, and didn't shoot him to make sure. Rabies is a horrible way to die, and she wasn't smart enough to put him out of his misery (and protect herself and her son).

Poor Cujo. The moral of the story is: Get your pets rabies shots, don't drive a dying car to the mechanic without someone coming along in another car to take you home, and even if you think a "monster" is dead, unload a gun into its head. Like they say in "Zombieland": Double tap.

There is no objective reality... and that's Sucker Punch

Yes, this was gross neglect. That is where I feel Stephen King failed in his novel and the writers failed in the movie. In the book, King does give us some sympathy for Cujo, but he never really goes into how wrong it is that Cujo even got rabies and about how wrong it was that he was not protected from it and he really did not give the reader any opportunity to develop a love for the dog. But in the book when Cujo's owner got another dog, King did indicate that he and his surviving parent did feel sorrow about Cujo's death and did see to it that the puppy had all the required shots. But the movie left this out and at least at the end they could have had a PSA about the importance properly caring for pets and getting them vaccinated.
All this is what really turned me off of the book and the movie. King could have made this a modern day type of Old Yeller, but he chose to make a horror novel and just try scaring people and really nothing else. And the makers of the movie did the same thing.