The Plague Dogs
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The Plague Dogs is the third novel of Richard Adams, author of Watership Down. It was first published in 1977.
This book tells of the escape of two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, from a government research station in the Lake District in England, where they had been horribly mistreated. They live on their own with help from a fox, or "tod" in his Geordie dialect. After they attack some sheep on the fells, they are described as ferocious man-eating monsters by a journalist called Digby Driver. A great dog hunt follows which is intensified with the fear that the dogs could be carriers of a dangerous bioweapon like bubonic plague.
Like its predecessor Watership Down, this novel has an animated movie based on it. Unlike the book, where the dogs find sanctuary from the hunters and they are cleared of being carriers; the film takes a harder tone with an ending where the dogs are driven out to open water where they likely drown.
Characters
Rowf
Rowf is a black labrador retriever, 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. As a fox named the Tod teaches the two dogs to survive, they soon become fugitives from the army, as increasing reports of their hunting raise suspicions that they are rabid. Rowf is usually a downtrodden fellow, quite old and cynical, since he has had a hard life and never met a decent human. Also, as a result of the experimentation, he has gained an abnormal fear of water. But toward the end of his travels he starts to believe in something more.
Snitter
Snitter is a white, chocolate, and tan Fox terrier. Unlike his friend, Rowf, Snitter was once settled into a home. After his master's death from a oncoming truck, he was sold to the laboratory. The scientist in the lab have performed numerous brain surgeries on the poor dog, merging his conscious and subconscious mind. This causes him to have nightmarish flashes and dreams at random times, whether he be asleep or awake. Once he and his friend escape the lab, Snitter is determined to find another home for him and his friend. As they befriend a fox named the Tod, Snitter and Rowf are hunted to the sea by the army, who believes, because of several livestock killings, the dogs are rabid. Snitter is the most hopeful character in the book, and the most mysterious, since he can have several strange, but beautiful ramblings of future events and of past ones. And as he and Rowf are driven far out to sea, he sees something: Freedom.