Shout out to Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009) for being the first movie in the Top 100 list to make me cry!
Hachi: A Dog’s Tale is an adaptation of the 1987 Japanese film Hachikō Monogatari (English Translation: The Story of Hachikō). The original movie told the true story of the Akita dog named Hachikō, who lived in Japan in the 1920s. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale is set in the modern-day and was nominated for the Georges Award for Best Foreign Drama Movie in the Russian National Movie Awards in 2010. It did not receive any other nominations and did not win any awards. Despite winning no awards, the film is placed in 226th on IMDb’s Top 250 Films list. The movie was directed by the Swedish film director known for his collaborations with ABBA, Lasse Hallström. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale is the second dog movie that Hallström directed, the first (Mitt Liv Som Hund / My Life as a Dog), gaining him an Oscar nomination for Best Director in 1985.
The movie featured Richard Gere as Parker Wilson and actors Joan Allen, Sarah Roemer, Jason Alexander, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. The movie was filmed mainly at the train depot at Woonsocket Depot Square, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where (as of 2012) a bronze replica of the original Hachiko statue was placed. The movie tells the story of a college professor who bonds with an abandoned dog he takes into his home. The moral of the story is very obviously stated throughout the film: loyalty and trust. Because of this, I decided to take a more scientific and historical approach to the essay this week and explore what makes dogs so loyal to their humans in the first place.
While it’s easy to say that dogs are only loyal to their humans because the humans provide food and shelter. However, any dog owner can say it goes deeper than that. I have a cat. We feed her, play with her, and provide shelter, but she’s nowhere near as loyal as a dog would be.
Animal experts tend to attribute the loyalty of dogs to a shared history. The Canis lupus familiaris (dogs) and Homo sapiens (humans) have evolved together. The link between the two species dates many years back. It was first theorized that the dogs we know today evolved from wolves after they began cohabiting with humans. However, more recent studies found that dogs split from their wolf ancestors around 135,000 years ago — before dogs or wolves started living with humans. The newer research is supported with archeological evidence. Buried dog bones found near human settlements only date back 13,000 years. It stands to reason that the current theory is that wolves evolved into dogs without the help of humans. However, once dogs and humans started counting on each other, their evolution became linked.
Since the early days, dogs have become emotionally bonded to humans. Both humans and dogs are very good at reading body language, tonal and facial shifts, and gestures. Because of the two species’ high sensitivity to empathy, dogs can read our moods, and in turn, we read theirs.
On the other hand, loyalty is a natural behavior for dogs. Dogs are pack animals, meaning they are social creatures who need the company of other beings, whether they be other dogs or humans. Pack behavior is a well-known survival mechanism too. Being in a pack ensures protection from predators and teamwork to take down large prey with their own defense mechanisms (like a moose with massive antlers and powerful legs). Packs succeed because the group members depend on one another to survive. Animal experts and dog trainers believe that a pack mentality causes dogs to be loyal to their humans. Dogs view people as a member of the pack. So not only does human provide food and shelter, but they are also a means of protection on their own.
In conclusion, dogs love people. And people obviously love dogs. If it didn’t work this way, our evolution would have taken twice as long as it has, and vice versa. Taking care of dogs was how our ancestors survived the deep forests, snowy mountains, and hot deserts. Without dogs’ keen sense of hearing, sight, and smell, we humans would probably have perished 13,000 years ago.
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