Yes, you're right, the Boy had seen a dog early in the book. Since he knows what a dog sounds like in the film (when he was in the bunker and heard distant barking) we can conclude that the Boy had actually seen a live dog some time in the past, just as he had in the book.
"People who will care for, feed & not eat a dog during times of extreme deprivation, won't eat one another."
Also, it's unlikely a cannibal would want a barking dog to put any potential human prey on alert. (Or, by the same token, attract the attention of rival cannibals.) In the book, the family didn't have a dog with them, so it's presence in the film is likely to be for the reason you said.
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amkatz
8 years ago
Appreciate the reminder about the dog having appeared in the book.
It's interesting how making a change to clarify a story point can be lead, inadvertently to alternate interpretations of what's happened.
Watching the movie's finale a second it did strike me that the boy's lack of reaction to seeing the dog, combined with the family being so typical--mom, dad, boy, girl, pet dog--gave the setting a slightly unreal quality. So I had more sympathy to the POV expressed here that either the boy simply lost it after his father died or has been taken by people pretending to be good guys when I read it.
Still believe the ending is to be taken at face value.
Now I wonder whether a scene wasn't shot with another dog earlier in the film, or the father describing dogs to the boy didn't wind up on the cutting room floor.
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mcolby-125-523976
8 years ago
I thought it was to show that they were the ones above them when they were in the bunker his dad made them leave when dad heard something. Boy kept saying it was just a dog, when boy sees dog at the end he realizes it was these good people there and not the cannibals his dad thought.
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greg-233
8 years ago
"Boy kept saying it was just a dog, when boy sees dog at the end he realizes it was these good people there and not the cannibals his dad thought."
That as well.
Although it was understandable why the Man would be worried about who the dog might be with when they heard it. No way of telling friend from foe.
It's illogical to conclude the family at the end would intend to eat the Boy. If they had been cannibals, I'm pretty sure the Boy would have been killed as soon as the Veteran approached him. Come to think of it, why would the Veteran go to all the trouble of being persuasive (and risk being shot by the nervous Boy) when he's got his own shotgun that he can simply fire from a safe distance?
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mental1981
8 years ago
I agree with you on the shoot from a distance theory. On the other hand, I'm begining to reconsider the logic that the dog signified that they were good people. Think about this. You can eat a dog and be fed for a week. Or you can keep a pet as a useful tool in tracking and hunting down prey, like the boy and his father. Clearly, this wasnt the case with this family, as they didn't Kill the Kid on site.
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greg-233
7 years ago
"Think about this. You can eat a dog and be fed for a week. Or you can keep a pet as a useful tool in tracking and hunting down prey, like the boy and his father."
But a dog's barking can also announce your existence, as it did to the Man and the Boy. Even worse, it could announce your existence to another group of roaming cannibals. It would be just as bad as ringing a handbell, shouting "Here I am!"
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