“The Plague Dogs” and Mortality

Last updated on: September 2, 2026 at 2:12 pm by Zachary Miller

“The Plague Dogs” and Mortality 2026-09-02T14:12:25-06:00 Zachary Miller

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United Artists via “Film Fracture”

So, flashback to the late 70s, early 80s. Walt Disney Studios is kind of in a post-Walt stupor, and so aside from the occasional Don Bluth film, animation is being carried by some really unusual outlets. It’s in this ecosystem that author Richard Adams lets filmmaker Martin Rosen adapt two of his books into animated feature films. We’ll have to talk about Watership Down some other day, though. The film that most captures my attention right now is 1982’s The Plague Dogs.

The film follows two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, who finally escape captivity in a research facility where they were subject to torturous experimentation. They try to stay alive in the great, big world, but they find that the world outside is just as hostile. They may be out of the lab, but they aint out of the woods.

The dogs have no context for their situation and do not understand why the humans are treating them this way. These two are navigating an unfamiliar world. So much of the tension of this movie comes from these dogs having no sense for the danger they are stepping into. We, the human audience, can see that the chamber they’re stepping into is clearly labeled “incinerator,” but all they know is that this might lead them outside, so they jump on in and hope for the best.

Moreover, the dogs did not ask to be put in this situation. They are completely subject to the whims of the humans that first torture them and then hunt them. The film puts the viewer in the position to identify with someone who is afforded no space to exist in society.

The irony of this war against the dogs is that literally everyone’s problems would go away if these two could just find a home. The reason they eat the farmers’ sheep is because they have no one to take care of them.

The scientists suppose that Snitter wouldn’t have survived long out in the wild, reasoning that he’s far too weak to survive. They’re probably right, but they didn’t imagine that Snitter and Rowf would ever take care of another out in the real world.

Snitter and Rowf ally themselves for a time with a wild fox, known simply as “The Todd,” and they work in concert to keep each other fed. The Todd isn’t necessarily a model citizen, he’s rather underhanded and doesn’t share Snitter and Rowf’s reservation about killing wild sheep, but he does prove himself a faithful friend.

Snitter had a master at one point, but after he inadvertently caused his death, he not only lost his home, but he was also fell into the hands of “the white coats.” And Snitter does not recognize the world he returns to. He decides that the world must have changed since he was taken away, and perhaps that’s true. Though, we’re also left to imagine that this world has always been cruel and callous. It’s just that now Snitter is in a position to recognize it.

Snitter supposes they are being punished for being bad dogs and that they perhaps deserve their punishment. (These are two very existential dogs.) The same thing that leaves them unknowledgeable about the structure of human society, it also leaves them unable to reason that they did not create this world that abuses them.

You could almost see this as a dark mirror to something like Lady & the Tramp. That film makes the case that everyone deserves a home and a family. But this film also suggests that not everyone who needs a family is allowed into one, and that those who are left behind are left to die.

The film suggests the discouraging possibility that they will just forever be searching for a safe place and never find it. The film ends with Snitter and Rowf trying to escape their human pursuers as they swim out into the mist thinking they see an island in the distance. The film’s ending is ambiguous, and deliberately so, I’d imagine. It’s very up in the air whether there is an island at all, or if this is simply their last glimpse of this mortal plane.

Based on what we have seen of this world, we are free to imagine that the only “island” where they could possibly be safe would be on the other side of the veil. And perhaps that’s exactly where their paddle carries them–and where they at long last find rest.

The moral function of a movie like The Plague Dogs is to display what it looks like when certain groups are left unattended. These are the lost sheep who stand in need of ministering, like that which followers of Christ are in a position to extend.

United Artists via “Common Sense Media”

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