THE WILD SIDE OF DOGS:

Script / cue sheet

 

Time code “in” for Narration in parentheses ( )

Time code “in” for on screen text in brackets [ ]

 

(00:00:16:21) Increasingly we live in a world separated from Nature, blind or in denial of the consequences of our actions.

 

(00:00:35:01) Animals populate our dreams, our nightmares, our legends. 

 

(00:00:45:10) We love to look at them … and when they look at us, we cannot turn away.

 

(00:00:52:22) Are we drawn to something we have lost?  Something we still long for?

 

(00:00:59:09) We speak to them … and think they understand… but do we understand them?  Is there a natural or wild side to them that we don’t want to see?  Is that a dog … or something still a bit wolf-like .. living with us .. in our homes?

 

(00:01:19:22) This film is not about domestic dogs locked in homes or on a leash, controlled by humans, we look at the wild side of dogs and hopefully learn to better understand, and appreciate, that animal closest to us, as an animal, and not just as some reflection of ourselves.   

 

[00:01:43:16 ]  It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. 

 

[00:01:48:12 ]  Henry David Thoreau

 

 

[00:01:54:17 ]  THE WILD SIDE OF DOGS

 

 

 [00:02:22:00 ]  Sheepdogs

                           Barbagia, Italy

 

(00:02:14:14) In the first part of this film we spend one year with a shepherd and his sheepdogs to observe the oldest continuing relationship… and bond … between dog and man.

 

(00:02:49:03) And whether it can be called love or not, there is a pact of shared affinity and responsibility between humans and these dogs.  

 

[00:03:11:00 ]  Stray dogs

                          Bucharest, Romania

 

(00:03:01:01) …and here that bond has been broken.  In the second part of this film we spend one year on the streets.  Dogs, the first domesticated animal and the one that has shared our homes and lives for at least 15,000 years … are no longer welcome when modern cities transform … yards and houses replaced with apartment blocks … and there is little room left for pet dogs.

 

(00:03:34:20) We see how these previously domestic dogs, abandoned to a precarious and uncertain life on the street, survive the year. How they struggle to find food, shelter and a mate. We take a long, hard and unsentimental look at the wild side of dogs … that part of the natural world that we are so close to but rarely actually see.

 

 

 

[00:04:05:00 ]  Part I

       Barbagia, Sardinia

 

 

(00:04:11:22) Barbagia, perched in the high central mountains of Sardinia, Italy, is one of the least populated areas of Europe. Known for it’s strong willed independent people, and famous for it’s bandits, here sheep herding has existed continuously for several thousand years.

 

(00:04:37:05) The next day is the “Transhumance”, the annual winter migration of sheep from higher to lower pastures where they and the sheepdogs will spend several months away from the farm.

 

(00:04:53:15) Angelo, whose father was a shepherd, had to leave school and become a shepherd himself, at the age of 11, when his father passed away.

 

(00:05:04:08) When we arrived he had two sheep dogs, both female. Pepinedda is Angelo’s main sheep dog and one of the best he has ever had.

 

[00:05:09:16 ]  Pepinedda

 

[00:05:17:00 ]  Pastoredda

 

(00:05:16:20) Pastoredda, which means “little shepherd”, is half sheep dog and half hunting dog, and though she can guard and herd sheep well, she doesn’t always take orders from Angelo and often runs off to hunt or explore.

 

(00:06:28:23) Angelo has let Pepinedda keep one puppy from her last litter and she won’t leave the farm on the transhumance unless Angelo takes the pup with him. 

 

(00:07:15:20) Angelo reassures Pepinedda that her pup is safely in his hands … and with Pepinedda’s scent on him the new pup will be accepted by the other farm dogs. 

 

(00:07:43:23) He locks away the pup for the night so he can bring him along on the next day’s journey.

 

[00:07:54:00]  Pastoredda

 

(00:07:55:01) Pastoredda is in heat and is tied up for the first time because Angelo needs her for the Transhumance.

 

[00:08:23:00 ]  Boboreddu

 

(00:08:18:08) She refuses the advances from all the farm’s male dogs including Boboreddu, one of Angelo’s hunting dogs.

 

(00:08:27:24) When in heat, Pastoredda often leaves the farm and wanders for days before returning… the last time she brought back Uri, a small male dog who is the only one she will let mate with her. 

 

[00:08:35:00 ]  Uri

 

(00:08:57:12) Angelo lets Pastoredda and Uri have a chance to mate before the next day’s journey.  

 

(00:09:25:18) When a female moves her tail to the side it’s a sign to the male dog that she won’t resist him… and that she is ready to mate.

 

(00:09:41:21) For those of us who live in cities, far removed from nature, we see no more animal sex, births or deaths and too often these totally natural processes shame or shock us. 

 

(00:10:17:02) Boboreddu cannot force himself on Pastoredda. Rape doesn’t exist among dogs.  Instead, he hangs around in case she gives him a chance to mate with her.

 

(00:11:14:01) We will never know what dogs and wolves are saying to each when they howl… but we do know is that a howl is the sound they make to communicate over long distances.   

 

[00:11:31:00 ]  The Transhumance

 

[00:13:08:00 ]  Lower winter pastures

 

(00:13:37:15) Try as he might, Angelo can’t convince Pepinedda to enter the barn with her pup… she has always lived her life outside with the sheep and is not used to being inside.

 

(00:14:07:02) Shortly after their arrival, a neighbor’s dog has noticed that Pastoredda is in heat. 

 

(00:14:18:00) The tradition of the Transhumance provides the sheep with better pastures throughout the seasons, but it also offers the opportunity for the sheepdogs to mate with new dogs and form new gene pools. Pure bred dogs almost never exist in nature, instead, reproduction between different races creates better mixed-bloodlines for their offspring and has helped assure dog’s success as a species.

 

[00:15:32:19 ]  Three months later

 

(00:15:53:00) One day, after the transhumance and while staying in the lower winter pastures, a new male sheepdog appeared when Peppinedda was in heat.

 

[00:16::01:12 ]  Pepinedda

 

(00:16:07:00) He stays with her and Angelo adopts him, naming him “Pastoreddu”, the male version of “little shepherd.”  Now for the first time in our filming there is a male sheepdog on the farm.

 

[00:16:10:16 ]  Pastoreddu

 

(00:16:25:00) A sheep has died in the middle of the night of natural causes.

 

[00:17:06:13]  Pastoreddu

 

[00:17:22:18 ]  Pepinedda

 

(00:17:51:00) Pastoreddu, like wolves and some dogs, hides his meat for later …

(00:17:57:00) and then he returns…

 

[00:18:42:00 ]  Pepinedda

 

(00:19:05:00) Unless Angelo divides up the food, Pepinedda would have to wait until Pastoreddu has finished and hopefully left her something. Unlike domesticated  dogs, fed a bowl of food at the same time and place, these dogs struggle for food, never knowing where the next meal will come from … and the highest ranking animal, usually male, taking the food first.

 

[00:19:27:15 ]  Pastoreddu

 

[00:19:53:00]  The following winter

 

(00:22:25:00 ) Later, the same winter, Pepinedda and Pastoreddu have had a litter of pups. Angelo kept one, a female he names Totoredda, to raise as a new sheep dog. 

 

[00:22:34:16]  Totoredda

 

(00:23:06:00) Like all pups, she learns early the social signs of communication between dogs … and towards humans.  To turn and show her side, or lower herself, is a sign of non-aggression … and sometimes of play.

 

(00:24:05:00) Most people no longer see the blood and slaughter of animals for food or other uses … even though many people still eat meat, wear clothes and live with products made from animals.

 

[00:24:41:21 ]  Pepinedda

 

(00:24:48:00) Here on the farm, life, death, and birth is normal, and everything is used, nothing wasted.

 

[00:25:40:00]  Spring

 

[00:26:25:15]  Negedzolla

 

(00:26:25:00) Negedzolla is one of Angelo’s hunting dogs. 

(00:26:33:00) He puts her in the barn for the night so she can give birth inside, but she will have to share the space with another dog’s pups.

 

(00:27:15:00) That night, Angelo was alerted by one of the dogs that a sheep had stayed out in the field and had just given birth.

 

(00:28:39:18) Now that Negedzolla has given birth to her first pup, she makes it clear she will no longer tolerate being bothered by someone else’s pups.

 

[00:29:21:00]  Totoredda

 

(00:30:03:00) She can’t revive one of her pups, it’s common for there to be stillbirths in a litter.

 

(00:32:04:00) While Pastoreddu has clearly become the highest ranking male on the farm and makes a big show of defending and marking his territory … it won’t last… one day he will be too old to perform his various duties and a new dog will take his place … perhaps his own son. 

 

(00:32:58:12) Pepinedda has learned to take her food away and eat on her own.

(00:33:05:00) Meanwhile, one of her and Pastoreddu’s new pups, though still small and young, is trying to keep all the food for himself.

 

[00:33:33:00] Totoredda

 

(00:33:35:10) and his older sister Totoredda has to rely upon Angelo for her share.

 

(00:34:09:00) Throughout the year’s rain and cold, sun and heat, we shared some of Angelo’s life. A life in the natural world that most people, and dogs, have lived for thousands of years… but far fewer do today.

 

(00:35:37:00) Angelo understands this world where animals and humans all depend upon each other, and especially appreciates his dogs, whom he sees and treats as the animals they are … and who are his loved and loyal companions. 

 

 

[00:36:04:12]  Part II : Bucharest, Romania

 

 

[00:36:11:00 ]  “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous,

he will not bite you.

[00:36:15:19 ]  That is the difference between dog and man.”

 

[00:36:20:00]  Mark Twain

 

(00:36:29:00) All cities eventually go through the same process of urbanization… In Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, the former dictator, demolished many of the city's houses and gardens, and built apartment blocks, boulevards and the infamous Palace of Parliament the second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon, all part of a nationwide program to create the “new” capital and to modernize cities throughout the country. From the urban space to the suburbs, gardens were limited and agriculture banned, and Bucharest’s city streets filled with tens of thousands of stray dogs.  Some people defended the stray dogs and wanted to protect them and others resented their presence or were afraid of them.

 

(00:37:22:17) When we arrived in Bucharest, tensions were high. The street dogs were being rounded up by the authorities to be euthanized and some were being murdered by private vigilantes and disposed of in garbage bins or the city dump.

 

(00:37:50:00) Some of these dogs live on their own and have difficulty surviving the winter or risked being caught by the authorities, like this one in front of the Palace of Parliament who may not survive the winter.

 

(00:38:07:18) Others band together in loose groups and with more protection in numbers they have a better chance at surviving,

(00:38:16:00) yet one of this group has just died, hit by a car or from the cold or disease.  

 

(00:38:34:00) And some gravitate towards people, perhaps sensing that being close to humans will give them a better chance at surviving.

 

(00:38:50:00) For all living things, the concerns of immediate survival, food and safety, come first, but then there is the question of long-term survival, reproduction and the continuation of one’s genetic material.

 

(00:39:08:00) Most domestic dogs are neutered and spend their lives locked in apartments, taken out only on a leash. But for the street dogs, when it comes to reproduction, when they find a female in heat they court her relentlessly and compete with any other dogs if needed in the hope that she will allow them to mate with her.

 

(00:40:22:00) The dog with the broken collar may be an escaped domestic dog or a failed attempt at turning a street dog into a pet, we never learned which and always found him living on the street. He has been following the female in heat for two days, waiting for her to become ready. 

 

(00:41:04:00) The female in heat and some other dogs have been taken in and cared for by the construction workers on an extension of the Bucharest metro. They feed them their left over food and in turn the dogs guard the site.

 

(00:41:30:11) The male with the broken collar can’t enter the site because it’s not neutral territory, like the street, and belongs to the construction site dogs.

(00:41:41:00) The smaller white dog, despite his size, is the most assertive male at the site.

 

(00:43:29:18) The next day, the female in heat is still not ready. Other neighborhood dogs have now scented the female … and the large white and brown one is a serious new threat.

 

(00:43:50:00) The dog with the broken collar is intimidated by the new dog’s size and confidence and dares not attack him, and instead vents his frustration on a weaker dog.

 

(00:44:31:00) But within minutes the new dog has gained access to the female in heat and pushed the others aside without a fight.

 

(00:44:55:00) After all that time and hard work staying close to the female the dog with the broken collar doesn’t fight the new challenger … it’s actually a very typical dog strategy. If he attacked the new dog and was beaten, he would most likely have to leave and give up having any access to the female… but taking a strategy that allows him to hang around gives him a chance to mate with the female if the new dog has a lapse of attention or is overwhelmed by fatigue.

 

(00:45:54:09) The next day the female in heat is ready and she no longer resists advances. For the moment, the large white and brown dog is still the strongest and closest to her.

 

(00:46:43:00) Just as Totoreddu, the young puppy in Sardinia, moved to the side and lowered herself to show non aggression, these gestures are universal in dogs and here too, are communicated in the same way.

 

(00:47:07:00) Its not always clear, to humans, why some female dogs choose a monogamous mate, like Pastoreddu and Uri in Sardinia. Other dogs, like the black female in Bucharest, are promiscuous and will allow any male to mate with her.

 

(00:47:27:00) Female dogs can have multiple fathers for the same litter, evolution's way of maximizing the chance of passing on good genes to their pups. And nature has evolved both dogs, and cats, to be able to do this.

 

(00:48:24:00) Just across the street, the little white dog from the construction site appears to have a problem with his right rear leg, which he uses to see if he can gain sympathy from the workers at the site.

 

(00:49:08:00) Dogs are masters at faking and manipulation.

 

(00:49:44:00) In this large apartment block a group of neighbors have allowed a female with a new litter and an older male pup from her previous litter to live in the yard.

(00:49:58:00) They name the female “Fetitsa” or Romanian for little girl, and they name the older pup Boyat.

 

[00:50:00:00] Fetitsa

[00:50:05:00] Boyat

 

(00:50:40:00) Boyat is upset and defends his territory and the young pups, while Fetitsa runs away and is comforted by one of the people who take care of her, and who had agreed to our filming.

(00:51:02:17) When Boyat is also reassured, he calms down and from then on always accepts our presence. This was the first time in all our time on the streets of Bucharest, even while in the midst of a dog fight, that a street dog acted aggressively towards us. Fetitsa grew up surviving on the street and ran away rather than guard the litter, but Boyat, and these pups, were born and raised in that yard and were not really street dogs, they were more like any territorial domesticated dogs but with a large and very public front yard.

 

(00:51:59:15) A few days later, Boyat is alone with his younger siblings, under the watchful eye of some of the neighbors who are not happy with their presence.

 

(00:53:08:00) Oana, one of the main caretakers of the dogs and several others have pooled their money together to have Fetista spayed across town at a good hospital.

 

(00:54:12:17) While Fetitsa is lucky to have good care, other clinics do a cheaper and low quality procedure, sometimes resulting in complications or even death. For years, the city’s policies regarding vaccination, sterilization, or euthanization of stray dogs were either unclear, unenforced or mismanaged leaving even well meaning people like Oana few options to help.

 

[00:54:47:00]  Summer

 

(00:55:13:00) We returned to Boyat and Fetitsa’s where they were still being taken care of by Oana and the other neighbors.

(00:55:23:00) Boyat was more grown up but still an adolescent.

(00:55:32:12) The expression where they stretch back their lips and show their teeth and gums is a dog’s way of showing each other and humans that they are not being aggressive and sometimes also being submissive.

 

[00:55:49:00 ]  Oana

 

(00:56:32:00) Fetitsa, like most dogs, would spend the hot summer days just lying around and conserving her energy.

(00:56:41:00) And at night, when it was coolest, the street dogs were more active.

 

(00:57:11:00) The metro work was still under way and the construction site dogs still well entrenched in their relatively comfortable home.

(00:57:22:00) The black female that was in heat earlier in the year was there but with no sign of any of her puppies.

 

(00:58:12:14) The next year we found a new litter at Fetitsa’s, those of a now grown up Boyat and his new mate. Oana and friends still take care of the dogs despite disagreement with some of the neighbors.

 

[00:58:37:14 ]  Boyat & his mate

 

(00:59:04:00) Across the street from Boyat and Fetitsa’s is a small apartment block occupied primarily by Romanian Gypsies also know as Roma.

 

(00:59:16:15) One man had just bought a new set of furniture for his living room and had put the old set outside for a litter of stray puppies and their mother. 

 

(01:00:16:00) One theory of how dogs were first domesticated is that some wolves stayed on the outskirts of human camps and lived off human waste and remains uneaten from hunting. They defended their food source from animals including other wolves, humans grew used to them and a kind of mutually beneficial balance was established, and with time they evolved into the first dogs.

(01:00:44:00) Another theory is that stray or orphaned wolf puppies were taken in by humans, maybe by children, and evolved into the domestic dog.  Perhaps both of these theories are true, in part. Like many thousands of years ago when dogs first started to live off humans, and began their long journey through history with us, Bucharest street dogs were also surviving through the help of many kind people. To see how they lived under harsher conditions, we went searching for a place where they had little or no contact with people.

 

(01:01:55:00) Outside Bucharest, in an abandoned city dump, lives a pack of stray dogs.

(01:02:02:20) We see many frozen carcasses. Did they die of natural causes, disease or the cold? Or were they killed and dumped there? And how many are buried below the surface?  

 

(01:02:48:00) Within the first year, a quarter of new pet dogs are given away to another home, abandoned or turned in to an animal shelter, where most are put to sleep.  And every year there are millions of dog bites, rarely from stray dogs, mostly by people’s own pets. They understand us very well, a skill essential to their survival, but how well do we understand them?

 

(01:03:53:18) In more than a year of filming on the streets of Bucharest, we never felt in danger from any of the street dogs, most were not even afraid of us, but if they were, they would just run away.

 

(01:04:16:00) Only the domestic dogs, on leashes or behind fences would be aggressive, having their own territory of their own to defend. 

 

[01:04:15:11]  Boyat & Fetitsa

 

(01:04:39:12) After we left Bucharest and stopped filming Boyat with his own litter of pups, was as territorial as ever. With the circumstances unclear, Boyat bit a neighbor and Oana later found both he and Fetitsa poisoned to death.

 

(01:05:08:00) On our last day of filming, in a touching reminder of Angelo and Sardinia, a Romanian shepherd passed by with his flock of sheep. He had no use of dogs he told us, without explanation.

(01:05:24:00) And for these dogs in the dump, the lives of the sheepdogs in far away Sardinia had no relation to their precarious lives.

 

(01:05:40:00) We are the loneliest of species.  

(01:05:44:10) it may make it look as if we are connected to each other and to everything, but are we really?  

(01:05:51:00) Maybe we are more disconnected than ever before, definitely from nature, but perhaps also from each other, and even from ourselves.

(01:06:04:00) In search of companionship we turn our pets into humans, sometimes even into our children, but eventually children grow up, they learn to talk back, make their own decisions, and hopefully leave home.  Our pets don’t.  They live with us in temperature-controlled homes, eating processed foods, denied many of their natural instincts.

 

(01:06:46:00) Dogs were the first domesticated animal, and the one we have lived closest with for well over 15,000 years. Perhaps our affinity and closeness to them is not how much they resemble us … but how much we resemble them. 

(01:07:03:00) They are survivors, highly adaptable, calculating, manipulative, and wonderful animals. And they know very well how to find their way into our homes and our hearts. One thing is certain, no species   has so sealed their fate to ours as dogs have done. They have followed us to all corners of the earth, and they depend upon us more than any other animal does, and we perhaps on them. 

 

 

[01:07:42:00 ]  A film by

                      Daniel Meyers

 

 

 

[01:07:48:00 ] 

Cinematographer

Daniel Meyers

 

Editing

Paul Morris

Omid Zarei

 

Additional Editing

Mona Chenzi-Yimeng

Karine Mitrecy

 

Colorist

Omid Zarei

 

Sound Design

Daniel Meyers

Omid Zarei

 

Sound

Cristian Coroiu

Patricia Ribault

James Walker

 

Music

Benjamin Banger

 

Producer

Daniel Meyers

 

Dog behavior advisors

Dr. Ian Dunbar

Kelly Gorman Dunbar

 

 

With the help of a completion grant from

 

The Silicon Valley Foundation

Palo Alto, California

 

 

And with administration services by

 

Tenth Street Media Arts Foundation

Berkeley, California

 

 

Production Services Bucharest

Hi Films

 

 

 

 

With a big thanks to all the people who helped by viewing,

commenting and otherwise supporting the completion of this film.

 

 

Nu Paws Academy, Jeremy Ahouse, Lisa Foltz Allan

David Ambrose, Vicki Barker, Terry Bennett and Dolores Cordell

Pauline Berkes, Nicky Bolster, Romain Bourdon

David and Esther Bozak, Claire and Ralph Brindis

Vicky Carne, Levi Clark, Patricia Coppieters

Bill Cran, David Dan, Adam Delderfield

Willie DeVries, Ian and Kelly Dunbar

Andrew Horton, Daniel Elias and David Houts

Robert Erlick, Elliott Erwitt, Lori A. Esau

Dorothy and James Fadiman, Susan Fassberg

Gary Feingold, Eric Fischer, Emmanuel Fuentebella

Gerd Goovaerts, Joshua Grant, Dany Grosemans

Jane Grossman, Tanya Hawkes, Daniel Hoffman

Garrett Hongo, Eric Houts and Sue Flynn

Dee Hubert, Jeanine Janssen, Peter Janssen

Paul Jenkins, Elizabeth Jones, Brian Kallay

Pat Knittel, Michel Kaptur and Avidia

Dietlind Lerner, Wendy Lindstrom, Maria Muradas Lopez

Pamela Lowry, Lee Ann Lyon, Maryann Macdonald

Shem Malmquist, Stéfan Marchand, Bill Marley

Jim Mayer, Amina Megalli, Michal Merin

Anne-Marie Miller, Jonathan Miller, Penny Miller

Rebecca Moore, Arriane Morris, Jill Nicholls and David Veltman

Greg Palast and Leni, Leonard Pitt, Glenn Reeder and Ken Pierce

Sanja Popovic, Cindy Easton Rhodes, Susan Rhodes

Patricia Ribault, John Rogers, Steve Rogers

Laura Rosenberg, Laurent Sablic and Michèle Wertheim

Mimi Sheiner, Anat & Joe Silvera, Victoria Soares

Alexandru Soliman, Jane Stevenson, Fred Stein

Sophia Swire, Marsha Tyszler, Abigail Van-Alyn

Koen Vandecauter, Anne Marie Vignon, Aron Warner

Mark Wexler, Claudia Wordsworth, Belinda Young

David Bersin-Zemach and Kaethe Zemach

 

 

A special thanks to Angelo Cadau for opening his home and farm to our filming and

 letting us share his life and work for well over a year.

 

A big thanks to Gristolu for introducing us to Angelo Cadau and

 to the wonderful town of Gavoi and all its inhabitants.

 

A special thanks as well to Oana and her parents for letting us film them and

 the street dogs that they so kindly are taking care of.

 

 

 

 

And the biggest thanks to Mona, without whom I may not have finished this film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wild Side of Dogs © 2019

All rights reserved.