By Mary Shaffer
and Jerry Bunin
The Tribune

When you are giving thanks Thursday, consider going to the dogs - dog movies, that is.

"Man's best friend" has stood beside us since our ancestors hunted together in prehistoric times. The love affair is the same in every part of the world and every level of society.

Unlike other relationships, dogs love without question or condition. They are loyal, eager to please, protective, playful and supportive.

From Rin Tin Tin, an ex-German army dog who became a silent film star, to "Beethoven" (a popular 1992 release now doing well on video), dogs have charmed filmmakers and moviegoers.

Movies about dogs can be silly, funny, heart-warming, thrilling and/or dramatic. Settings and circumstances may change, but most plots involve journeys, sacrifices, and choosing between freedom and captivity.

The best of these movies are positive, teaching lessons about life and death, courage and cooperation, honesty and perseverance, companionship and responsibility.

In an age when too many films emphasize sex, violence and sacrifice character and emotional warmth for special effects, we recommend these films as solid entertainment families can share during the holidays or anytime.

Probably the most famous movie dog is Lassie (originally played by a laddie named Pal) who, like Rin Tin Tin, appeared in several films but is best remembered for a TV series.

The character first appeared in "Lassie Come Home" (1943) from Eric Knight's novel about a poor English family forced to sell their pet to keep food on the table.

But Lassie escapes her new owners and travels hundreds of miles, overcoming man-made and natural obstacles with the help of friendly strangers, to rejoin her young master (Roddy McDowell).

The film is still terrific entertainment for all ages. It costars young Elizabeth Taylor (in her second film) and introduces many of Lassie's trademark behaviors such as her amazing ability to communicate her "thoughts" by barking.

"You can understand some of man's language," a kind peddler tells Lassie. "But man isn't bright enough to understand thine, yet it's us that's supposed to be intelligent."

While MGM made the early Lassie films, Walt Disney has made many memorable dog films.

One of the best is "The Incredible Journey" (1963), a true story about two dogs and a cat who travel 250 miles through the Canadian wilderness to the human family they lost.

In "The Journey of Natty Gann" (1985), a young girl (Meredith Salenger) travels across America during the Great Depression to find her penniless father who has gone West to find work.

She would never had survived life on the road without being befriended by a wolf (actually played by a dog) and later by a young man (John Cusack).

Friendship and sacrifice form the cores of "Old Yeller" (1957) and "Greyfriar's Bobby" (1961), two Disney live-action classics set in the 1860s.

Based on Fred Gipson's novel, "Old Yeller" is about a Texas mother and two sons who adopt a stray dog one summer while the father is away.

At first, the oldest boy, Travis (Tommy Kirk), resents and distrusts the "old yeller dog," but Yeller quickly proves invaluable, helping around the ranch and saving lives.

Travis and the dog become inseparable until events force the dog to make the ultimate sacrifice and the boy to become a man.

Like most Disney adventures, "Old Yeller" contains authentic wildlife and nature scenes, but it's the universal theme of growing up and taking responsibility that made it a classic and those are lessons Travis learns from Old Yeller.

"Greyfriar's Bobby" is the true story of a legendary terrier who remains loyal to his master even in death, returning nightly for 14 years to sleep on the old shepherd's grave. ("Challenge to Lassie" (1949) tells the same story with the collie.)

The effort to preserve Bobby's freedom and his nightly ritual unites a Scottish community, including a lonely old innkeeper, the cemetery caretaker, and the poor tenement children who live nearby.

"A dog needs a home," the innkeeper says, "But it needs love, too. And for many of these kids, Bobby is the only love they know."

Disney's most famous animated dog films revolve around family love.

"101 Dalmations" (1961) follows a dog couple determined to rescue their 15 puppies (and 84 buddies) before dastardly dognapper Cruella de Ville turns them into spotted fur coats.

"Lady and the Tramp" (1955) are a streetwise mutt and a cultured cocker spaniel whose budding romance is threatened by the dog catcher.

Both animated films are told from the dog's perspective. But "Lady and the Tramp" is richer and more complex, both musically and in its themes of class differences and the clash between having a home and being free.

Those clashes also energize "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang," Jack London's classic adventure tales of dogs, men and natural forces let loose in the Alaskan wilderness.

Set during the Yukon Gold Rush in the late 1800s, both view dogs as symbols of the conflict in man between good and evil and between "civilized" society and the primitive wilderness.

"Call of the Wild" (1997) is about Buck, a pet dog kidnapped from a life of leisure and forced into a grueling existence as a sled dog.

Buck's experiences with other dogs and people, good and bad, awaken his instincts. The closer he gets to the natural state, the more strength and wisdom he gains, until he reverts to the wild, "free forever from the society of man."

"White Fang" (1991) is just the opposite: an orphan wolf-dog yearning to belong. Fang is domesticated and then brutalized by different men before being rescued by a young prospector, who is also orphaned and learning to survive in the wild.

Both stories have been filmed at least three times, but the best versions (noted above) stick close to London's powerful and still timely original stories.

They endure because, like most great dog stories, they touch basic emotional truths everyone learned caring for animals they have known and loved.

Mary Shaffer works at Cal Poly. Jerry Bunin is a Telegram-Tribune reporter. They belong to an Australian shepherd named Dusty and a golden retriever named Rags.

• "The Voice of Bugle Ann" (1936)
• "The Courage of Lassie" (1946)
• "From Pluto with Love" (Various)
• "You Never Can Tell" (1951)
• "Umberto D" (1952)
• "It's a Dog's Life" (1955)
• "A Dog of Flanders" (1959)
• "The Shaggy Dog" (1959)
• "Big Red" (1962)
• "Lad: A Dog" (1962)
• "The Legend of Lobo" (1962)
• "Benji" (1974)
• "Where the Red Fern Grows" (1974)
• "Dogpound Shuffle" (1975)
• "The Shaggy D.A." (1976)
• "For the Love of Benji" (1977)
• "Kavik, The Wolf Dog" (1980)
• "Never Cry Wolf" (1983)
• "Frankenweenie" (ca. 1984)
• "The Plague Dogs" (1984)
• "Second Sight: A Love Story" (1984)
• "My Life as a Dog" (1985)
• "The Adventures of Milo and Otis" (1989)
• "All Dogs Go to Heaven" (1989)
• "Beethoven" (1992)
• "Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog" (1995)
• "Air Bud" (1997)
• "Shiloh" (1997)