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Snitter, who understands both the Tod's speech and his mode of thought. Rowf, by contrast, "can't understand a word he says," distrusts his "sly, sneaking" ways, and believes that the Tod is taking advantage of his strength to provide himself with easy meals in return for advice without which Rowf feels he and
Snitter would be better off. For a while the trio survive reasonably comfortably, the dogs killing sheep and fowls under the Tod's guidance, but eventually the dogs' indiscreet ways drive him away, which together with the onset of winter marks the start of a much tougher phase of the dogs' fight for survival. In the book, when Rowf drives him away, the Tod meets Snitter whilst being pursued by a local foxhunt. As the pack of foxhounds closes in on the Tod, he tells Snitter to run, giving him a final positive message for Rowf. The Tod is overtaken and killed by the hounds. The Tod's death is not explicitly depicted, although one of the huntsmen is described as holding up his body and tossing it to the hounds.
721:". She is a domineering woman, and it is implied that her husband ran off without the formalities of a divorce because he could not stand her anymore. She is disdainful of her brother's easygoing, untidy ways and has hated Snitter since she first met him. To her falls the responsibility of looking after Snitter after Wood's road accident, which she discharges by selling him to ARSE, buying fur-lined boots and gloves with the proceeds, and lying to Alan to cover her misdeeds. She is interviewed by Digby Driver midway through the book, and is successful in falsely confirming Driver's assumption that her brother is dead. When Driver finds out about the truth, he confronts Moss and interrogates her. Moss reveals her whereabouts and Driver helps Wood find Snitter and Rowf.
706:, which he deems unimportant, and seems to have little social life, but is devoted to Snitter. For most of the book, Snitter believes him to be dead — killed in an accident as he saved Snitter from being run over by a truck after the dog ran onto the road. Snitter reminisces fondly and wistfully about his life with his master, gradually working up to the traumatic events of the accident, wracked by guilt because he believes himself responsible for his master's death. Near the end of the story, it is revealed that Wood survived the accident and is recovering slowly in a hospital. He had been told by his sister that Snitter has run off and cannot be found; he is horrified when he eventually sees a report in the
794:, which was released in 1982. Unlike the book, there is the implication that the Tod might still be alive in the film; a hunter who found him says he and the others "caught" a fox, this could imply the Tod is merely playing dead. In contrast to the ending in all published editions of the book—which describes the dogs being rescued from the sea, cleared of carrying the plague, and united with Snitter's lost master—the film ends the way Adams first envisioned (before being prevailed upon by his editor and others who read his original manuscript), with the dogs swimming out to sea, hoping to find what Snitter calls "The Isle of Dog" in the novel (though Rowf grimly speculates that it's probably the
601:. He is an amoral, self-centred man, writing wildly sensationalist articles with only the sketchiest grounding in fact and using blackmail to extort background information about bio-weapon research at ARSE. The media hysteria he creates causes panic among the local populace and eventually moves the government to deploy the army to exterminate the dogs. He redeems himself when he receives a letter from Snitter's hospitalized master and brings him from the hospital to the centre of the action in the nick of time to meet the boat returning the dogs to land and assert his legal claim as Snitter's owner, thus saving the dogs from summary execution by the waiting soldiers.
580:). Frequently, he hallucinates the sight of his master approaching, and turns round in joyful greeting, only to find there is no one there. Once he and Rowf escape the lab, Snitter is determined to find another home for himself and his friend. Snitter is the most hopeful character in the book, and the most mysterious, since he can have several strange ramblings concerning his condition and past events. While he and Rowf are swimming out to sea, he has a horrifying vision of a man torturing and killing all the animals of the world, including some the existence of which he could not possibly know about, such as whales.
696:. Setting his gun aside, he tries to get Snitter to come get into his car. But when Snitter excitedly jumps up into his arms, his toe catches the trigger of Ephraim's shotgun. Because Ephraim had taken the safety catch off upon seeing Snitter, and forgotten to put it back on when setting the weapon aside, Snitter's toe catching the trigger causes the gun to off in Ephraim's face, killing him instantly. Snitter is traumatized by the incident, and Ephraim's death catches the attention of the media, who run with the story of the "dog who shot a man."
731:. It is implied that he and his civil servants were responsible for having ARSE established in Lawson Park. When Rowf and Snitter begin killing sheep, the farmers realize that the dogs were from the lab and figure that if the media can discredit the lab, they can embarrass the Secretary of State. After Digby Driver publishes the rumors of the dogs supposedly carrying the plague, Harbottle tries to protect his political career by attempting to address the situation to the public and implementing Operation Gelert via deploying a battalion of the
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574:. Unlike his friend, Rowf, Snitter was once settled into a home. After he lost his master in a road accident with a truck, he was sold to the laboratory by his master's sister. The scientists in the lab have performed numerous brain surgeries on Snitter, merging his conscious and subconscious mind. This causes him to have nightmarish flashes and dreams at random times, whether he is asleep or awake (similar to Fiver from
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evidently finds uncomfortable was to help find a cure for the mysterious disease from which his daughter
Stephanie is slowly dying, but he has ended up being assigned to totally unrelated research and his main motivation now is simply to maintain a stable home in an area where his daughter is happy (i.e., the Lake District). Eventually, his conscience gets the better of him during a
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A researcher at ARSE who was responsible for
Snitter's brain operations via merging his conscious and subconscious mind, which results in him suffering from hallucinations and seizures. It is implied that Fortescue's reasons for his experiments on Snitter is to determine if the effects would bear any
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A senior researcher at ARSE who was in charge of the experimental programme which involved Rowf. He is callous and unfeeling, with no sympathy for either the animals in his experiments or his subordinate, Stephen Powell. His inept handling of the situation arising from the dogs' escape serves both to
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to hunt down the dogs. When the dogs were rescued and reunited with Alan Wood, Harbottle and his senior civil servant, the Under
Secretary, arrive to have the dogs shot, but the warden of the Drigg Nature reserve forces him to leave, telling him that he has no right to be there and that it's illegal
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A shaggy, large black mongrel, born in the laboratory where inhumane experiments were performed on him and his companion, Snitter. Snitter escapes with Rowf, only to find that living in the great outdoors is quite challenging. Rowf is a downtrodden fellow, quite cynical and increasingly feral in his
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Adams stated in the book's introduction that "There is no such place in the Lake
District as Animal Research (Scientific and Experimental). In reality, no single testing or experimental station would cover so wide a range of work as Animal Research. However, every 'experiment' described is one which
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below. The dogs are by now starving, snowfall having removed the sheep from the fells and cut off their main food source, and they devour
Westcott's body. The discovery of the mutilated corpse allows Digby Driver to whip up media hysteria to new heights. His role of falling off a cliff in the film
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eventually comes to the conclusion that he imagined the island. As he is about to give up and drown, Rowf claims to directly see the island and they struggle on. It then ends with them disappearing into the mist, supposedly heading to the island. In the film's credits an island can be seen in the
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The odd-job man at ARSE, in charge of feeding and cleaning the animals and general care-taking duties. It is his neglecting to close Rowf's cage properly that allows the dogs to escape, but he successfully conceals his mistake by sabotaging the catch of the cage before anyone notices the missing
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on a monkey. He steals the monkey and takes it home, quits his job, and plans to get local employment as "a teacher or something." Early in the story he is given a lift by Digby Driver and, not realizing that he is a reporter, chats freely about his work in response to Driver's questioning. The
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encountered by
Snitter and Rowf early in the story. He speaks in the dialect of Upper Tyneside, having been born "far ahint th' Cross Fell". He forges an uneasy friendship with the dogs, teaching them hunting and survival skills in return for a share of the kill. The friendship is stronger with
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Dr. Boycott's subordinate, somewhat nervous and fearful of his chief, and evidently possessed of sympathy for his experimental charges which he dares not express for fear of being regarded as an unsound scientist by him. It appears that his original motivation for working in an area which he
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Harbottle's senior civil servant who was responsible for having ARSE set up in Lawson Park. When he and
Harbottle prepare to have the dogs shot after they were rescued from sea, the warden of the Drigg Nature Reserve and Digby Driver confront them and force them to leave as Rowf chases them
665:, he stops for toilet purposes, and while both humans are out of the car the dogs suddenly appear, invade the car and devour all the shopping. His anger at the violation of his prized car leads him on a solitary one-man crusade to destroy the dogs, and he falls to his death from the top of
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dialect. After the starving dogs attack some sheep on the fells, they are reported as ferocious man-eating monsters by an opportunistic journalist. A great dog hunt follows, which is later intensified with the fear that the dogs could be carriers of a dangerous
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Rowf and
Snitter's former friend who was mentioned several times throughout the book. It is stated that he had black and white fur and was a friend of Rowf and Snitter. Unfortunately, he was taken away by the scientists and was sentenced to death by cumulative
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and realizes the truth. He writes to Digby Driver, who is overcome with guilt for his actions and takes him from the hospital to the scene of the action just in time to ensure a happy ending. Wood asserts his legal claim as
Snitter's owner and takes in Rowf as
638:, which Driver uses as the foundation of his sensationalist scaremongering. The name "Goodner" is at one point revealed to be an anglicized form of "Geutner" – which is also the surname of the main female character in the original version of Adams's next novel
692:. He encounters Snitter by himself during the hunt, and although he prepares to shoot him, he notices the surgical scar on the dog's head and is moved to tears because it is implied that it reminds him of the medical experiments conducted at
358:. Having seen a manuscript, both men readily agreed to be identified with the characters and opinions that Adams had attributed to them, as is shown in Adams' preface to the book.
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antagonize the local farmers, who are losing sheep to the dogs, and to provide grist to Digby Driver's mill despite his efforts to do the opposite.
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during the Second World War, but has managed to conceal this information. Digby Driver finds out about Goodner's past through contacts at the
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A researcher at ARSE carrying out secret bio-weapon research for the Ministry of Defence. He is German by birth and was a "researcher" in
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Snitter's master. He is a gentle, kindly man, in late middle age, working as a solicitor. He is somewhat untidy in matters of
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may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience
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was taken by a bounty hunter named Ackland, who was hired by Dr. Boycott to take out the dogs.
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has actually been carried out on animals somewhere." The location of "ARSE" (an
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This article is about the 1977 novel. For the animated film, see
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similarities to the circumstances of the titular character from
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Please help by removing excessive detail that may be against
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Wise, Naomi (1 January 1985). "Review of The Plague Dogs".
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has him believing humankind may not be irredeemably bad.
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