Sebastian Speaks! Your Watchdog on a Disc

Tags

burglar alarms, german shepherds, GSD, guarding dogs, home alarm systems, novelty recordings, sound effects records

From the archives of KALX 90.7 FM in Berkeley…

Sebastian Speaks! Your Watchdog on a Disc.
Featuring Sebastian Von Willow, as trained by his owner, C. Brooks Whitfield
San Francisco: Grr-r Records (In-Sync), 1980

The notes on the back are fabulous. Click to enlarge and read in detail:

Some excerpts:

Thieves — Beware of Sebastian!

Sebastian Von Willow actually lives in Woodside, California. He is the mainspring of a family of five active people plus two lesser dogs, a parrot, squads of cats and some horses down by the barn. Like many German Shepherds, he really is two dogs in one. He is the playful family companion, pal, clown, tease, and general nuisance. And he is his family’s sentry — always on the alert for the unusual — a noise that shouldn’t be, a stranger at the door or lurking nearby. Day or night, Sebastian is ON GUARD… ready to warn, protect, defend. […]

What this Record Is And Isn’t…

No, this record is not a burglar alarm. And it is not guaranteed to fend off burglars or intruders. But it will help you create an illusion that there is a watchdog — a Sebastian of your own — right there behind your front door or in the back of the house.

Here are some suggestions for putting Sebastian to work in your home: when you go out, leave Sebastian playing at a moderate volume (test for the right setting by listening outside with doors and windows closed). Sebastian’s volume level should suit the natural ambiance of your home. Your record player should be set on “repeat” or the record changer arm or grippers should be set so the cycle will repeat. Turn on a portable radio, too. Each time you go out, vary the radio settings — sometimes no radio, other times a different program or volume. Sebastian loves the radio — any program — and will stay with you, restlessly snuffling and barking as long as you’re away. […]

For variety, you can adjust your turntable or record player to 45 RPM, and PRESTO! You’ve got a convincing middle-size dog sound. Perhaps Sebastian Jr. won’t seem quite as huge — but menacing, nonetheless!

How to Care for Sebastian

Sebastian is the easiest watchdog to care for in the world! He needs no food, no shots, never sheds, is perfectly obedient, has no embarrassing “doggie breath,” requires no clean-up, no grooming, no flea collars. But there are some things you must do to keep Sebastian speaking: Remember, this is a precision recording. Scratches or dust on the surface might make the arm stick. […]

How This Record was Made

Sebastian was recorded live, at work in his own home. No stand-in dogs or sound effects were used. Approximately 30 minutes of original material was prepared on a master tape, then sent to the sound studio. There, careful editing was done to achieve natural built-in pauses, barks, and growls of varying intensities — from faraway noises to up-close snarls! Don’t be surprised that you don’t hear wall-to-wall barking on this recording. That would be unnatural… and Sebastian Speaks sounds like the real thing, naturally!

This is why I love DJ’ing at a freeform radio station where they let you play just about anything you want. Sebastian speaks and lives… forever!

Training police dogs, The Young Companion (Liangyou) magazine, Nov. 1935

Tags

chinese dogs, 狼犬, german shepherds, GSD, kunming dogs, liangyou, malinois, police dogs, training, young companion

From a spread entitled “Training Police Dogs” 警犬之訓練 in the November, 1935 issue of The Young Companion [Liangyou 良友], a Shanghai-based illustrated monthly magazine. Photographs by WEI Shouzhong 魏守忠.

Apologies for the fuzzy picture quality (click to enlarge). The dogs in this article appear to be primarily Shepherd dogs (Malinois, GSD, etc.) that are generically translated as “wolf dogs” (狼犬) whether or not they have actual wolf ancestry. Not all the text is clearly visible either. I’ve transcribed what I could below. There was one significant portion that was not translated into English, so my rough translation is included in italics.

Overcoming Obstacles
警越礙練 － 為本時攝犬障物習此跳牆所。

本誌北平特約記者魏守忠君於寄此項照片時，附兩中有云：‘此犬為蔣斌先生私人畜養，得蔣先生之許可，並由王教練員指導各犬表演拍攝。警犬之訓練，完全為訓練者與犬發生精神上之聯合，用威情訓練。犬之一切動作，皆忠心於主人，不顧一切，達到其命令而後已。警犬與傳藝犬不同者，傳藝犬訓練法，只有二種：既責打與食物之引誘。一切動作非犬忠心主人，乃貪食物或怕責打而行之。此法於警犬則不能用。警犬之賞罰，完全靠精神之表現，否則負命外出，中途因食物或駭打而停止工作，則無用奕。

When this magazine commissioned these pictures from the reporter, Mr. Wei Shouzhong in Beiping (Beijing), attached to two were these notes: “These dogs are being raised privately by Mr. Jiang Bin. The dogs’ performances were photographed with his permission, and under guidance of trainer Wang. The training of police dogs depends entirely on the synergistic energy of the trainer and his dog, using a combination of authority and affection. The dog’s every action comes from his devotion to his master, with no concern for anything else. Achieving the command comes first; all the rest follows. The difference between police dogs and traditional dogs is that there are only two ways to train traditional dogs: with punishment by beating and with the lure of food. None of their actions come from their devotion to their master, but rather from their desire for food or their fear of punishment. These are not methods that can be used on police dogs. The reward and punishment of police dogs is entirely dependent on spirit of behavior, or else when it comes time to put their life on the line, they may stop mid-path for want of food or fear of blows, and thus be rendered useless indeed!

‘蔣君所訓練之犬，皆西洋種，因其性情靈敏，記憶力強，身體健康。我國之犬，因種之關係，血統邁近，所產之犬XX呆本，不宜警犬。除非國內之犬種加以整理，有系統之配合，幾十餘年之後，則犬種漸佳，或可選用。西洋不但對犬之血統有精神密之配合，其他如牛羊馬等等亦然，我國一切仰給外洋，不加努力，如一雞一犬，亦以外洋為佳，X可恥也。

警犬對於警務有極大之助力，因其嗅覺靈敏，可助人不能之事。吾等常於電影中略見一班。。。。。。

“The dogs trained by Mr. Jiang are all Western breeds, because they are quick and intelligent in spirit, strong of memory, and hale of body. As for dogs of our country [China], because of [canine] race relations, and the closeness of bloodlines, the dogs bred are dull and stupid, and thus not appropriate to become police dogs. Unless we organize the breeds in our country, employ a systematic method of breeding, after ten or so years, it would follow that breeds would gradually improve, and could be used selectively. The West not only attends to the pairing of canine bloodlines with precision, [livestock animal husbandry] of cows, sheep, horses, etc. is also like this. We rely on foreign countries for everything. If we don’t increase our efforts, foreigners will have the advantage even when it comes to a single chicken or dog — a disgrace indeed.

Police dogs provide a tremendous assistance to police work because their exceptional sense of smell can accomplish what humans cannot. We often get a glimpse of this in the movies…

To find the smell of a stolen object
尋犯所匿物，犬聞者氣，尋其藏件。覓者藏之件使嗅犯之味再覓所物。

Running
警犬之奔馳練習。

Crawling
使伏爬練，便尋人時為手見犬地行習以於緝犯不敵所。

Keen watch over his master’s possessions
警防物之練主指地犬伏件，為守犬守件訓，人定點即物前嚴看。

To rescue a bonded person
警犬之救人訓練解縳時之攝影。

Jumping over fences
警犬上梯之訓練。

Climbing ladders
警犬跳越低欄之訓練。

Daily outdoor exercises
警犬每日照例午操，以鍛鍊其體魄

FILM: The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Tags

Conrad Veidt, dog movies, German film, german shepherds, GSD, Paul Leni, silent film

Film: The Man Who Laughs
Director: Paul Leni
Performers: Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Zimba the Dog (Homo the Wolf)
Breed featured: German Shepherd
Production information: Universal, 1928 (USA)

In seventeenth century England, young Gwynplaine, son of a nobleman, has his face surgically disfigured into a permanent, grotesque grin as punishment when his father offends the King. Cast out into the wilderness, the boy picks up an orphaned blind baby and is eventually taken in by a kind-hearted mountebank, Ursus. Gwynplaine and the baby girl, Dea, grow to be central members of Ursus’ traveling theatrical troupe. The young lovers seem made for each other, so Ursus intends for them to marry. However, Gwynplaine deems himself inadequate for Dea, whose blindness has shielded her from the truth of his disfigurement.

Anyway, things happen, and Gwynplaine finds himself sucked back into the machinations of the royal court. The film summary on Wikipedia is perfectly sufficient to fill you in on plot details. Of course, I’m most interested in Ursus’ companion, a “domesticated wolf” whom he has named… Homo.

Talk about an identity crisis… Zimba the dog plays a wolf whose name is Latin for man!

Zimba is typed as a “German” shepherd dog for convenience, as the German nationality of the cast (specifically, Conrad Veidt) and director looms large over this extravagant, semi-silent Hollywood production. Publicity perhaps subtly affected the way that audiences decoded the image of Homo the “Wolf.” Anyway, Zimba was not the first — nor would he be the last! — GSD called upon to play the part of a wolf in film. Rin Tin Tin, the more famous contemporary dog actor, often straddled the lupine-canine divide as well. These dogs appeared large and imposing and could assume fierce faces on command.

Yet, they were appealing precisely because they’re “tameable,” able to be mastered. So Homo knows to guard his own, and to stay at Dea’s side when ordered to serve as masculine surrogate in Gwynplaine’s absence.

His muzzle doesn’t appear quite as triangular as most GSD, does it? Nor does he have the dark mask that is required in the breed standard.

The wolfdog occupies an important thematic role as observer, mediator, and judge. Named after the saying, Homo homini lupus, or “Man is a wolf to [fellow] man,” Homo metes final justice, acting both as a force of nature and (human) moral rectitude when he rips out the throat of the big bad guy. But most importantly, because the animal actor delivers the violence we wished upon the enemy, the humans are allowed to return to innocence even as their collective bloodlust is satiated.

Victory for dog, victory for mankind! He gives the audience what they want without the guilt. What a very useful dog indeed.

Bonus animals in the film include several other anonymous dogs scurrying under horse hooves and cartwheels, and a pet monkey in the possession of one kinky Duchess Josiana. This last pairing adds a touch of irony — the primate, as well as the royal mistress whose emotions he mimics, are both far more “beastly” than the wolf who dwells amongst sideshow freaks.

Homo the Wolf may not live up to his form, but in this story, he certainly lives up to his name.

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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.

Sightings: Everybody has a Chuckit except us

Tags

chuckit, dog toys, german shepherds, GSD, labrador retrievers, rat terrier, shiba inu, swedish vallhund

Hmm, why yes… it does appear that everybody has a Chuckit (or at least their special orange balls) except for us!

Film: Siren of the Tropics (La sirène des tropiques)

Tags

colonialism, dog movies, french flm, german shepherds, GSD, josephine baker, primitivism

Film: Siren of the Tropics (La sirène des tropiques)
Director: Mario Nalpas, Henri Étiévant
Performers: Josephine Baker, Pierre Batcheff, Régina Dalthy
Breed featured: German (?) Shepherd
Production information: La Centrale Cinématographique, 1927 (France)

Josephine Baker nearly explodes off the screen in her feature-length film debut. Full of vigor, beauty, and passion, it’s little wonder that she instantly captivated European audiences while simultaneously alienating American viewers in her rejected homeland who were too deeply entrenched in segregationist rhetoric to appreciate her kinetic artistry. The entwining of racial politics and constructed primitivism is a bit problematic in this colonial backdrop of the French Antilles islands, where the beginning of the film is set. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll just focus on the way that Baker’s character, Papitou, expresses her “natural” animal mystique.

In her opening scene, Papitou witnesses a group of neighborhood children throw a poor cat down a well. She leaps to the rescue and saves the kitten, who’s luckily no worse for the wear. At home, she towels the cat off while her shepherd awkwardly tries to mouth it dry. But with just a bit of gentle, easy chiding, Papitou is able to reconcile cat and dog — a testament to her natural ability to not only tame the beasts around her, but to create harmony between fabled enemies of old.

The dog wasn’t important enough to get his own screen credits or even a name in the story, but he creates a strong visual impression of her primitive roots — one which she chooses to leave behind when she follows her love interest back to Paris. As she slips away, the last (and only) person she bids farewell to is her dog; he expresses a brief, lingering sentiment and pathos as he claws against the door, calling out one last time for his mistress.

Historically speaking, I’m not sure how common shepherd dogs were in the French Antilles — or even if this dog is up to par with contemporary standards of “pure” “German” Shepherds. But it seems that his placement has little or nothing to do with German national identity. Rather, Papitou’s dog is a remnant of the colonial presence that haunts the region, and serves as a metonymic stand-in for the prick-eared, lean and wild-looking village dogs that are typical in so many regions.

However, this dog appears just refined enough that the illusion is penetrated. As if Josephine Baker’s glamor and radiance wasn’t enough to expose the film for its own constructedness! Which brings me to my second point about why I found this anonymous dog’s bit part so unusual and worth highlighting… Even as the image of the GSD was insistently masculinized and militarized by its more prominent appearances in film (Rin Tin Tin), in war, and in text (the GSD was said to only obey the will of women “with reservations”, according to breed founder Max von Stephanitz as cited in Aaron Skabelund, “Breeding Racism: The Imperial Battlefields of the ‘German’ Shepherd Dog,” Society and Animals 16 (2008) p. 360), leave it up to French filmmakers to totally disregard what this type of dog should mean according to Germans. A little bit like Josephine Baker herself, displacement in a foreign context gave this dog the freedom to signify with greater range.

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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.