The Science of Monsters

Black dogs have been explored in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) which has been the subject of many film and television adaptations, including the 1939 version starring Basil Rathbone. In the novel, Doyle takes inspiration from the folklore rampant in England, adding in the concept of the black dog being more than an apparition. “But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable, he was mortal, and if we could wound him, we could kill him.”⁵ Before Doyle was even born, Charlotte Brontë made mention of the ominous black dog, also known as a “gytrash” in her gothic masterwork Jane Eyre (1847):

It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie’s Gytrash—a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed,—a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No Gytrash was this,—only a traveler taking the short cut to Millcote.⁶

In film history, the black dog has made several appearances. There is the 1978 American made-for-television film Devil Dog: The Hound from Hell with an unintentionally hilarious VHS cover of a dog with devil horns growling beneath a crudely drawn pentagram. The movie starred Richard Crenna, and centered on a suburban family who accidently adopt a puppy from hell. There is also the aptly named Black Dog (1998) starring Patrick Swayze. Black Dog is more action and less horror, although it compounds on the black dog legend, developing it into a frightening vision seen by truckers on lonely stretches of highway.

Cujo the novel has one of Stephen King’s most bleak endings (spoiler alert: everyone dies!) so it’s no surprise that screenplay writers Don Carlos Dunaway and Lauren Currier tweaked the ending. They hoped for a more crowd-pleasing finish, with Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace) and her son Tad (Danny Pintauro) surviving the rabid dog-monster of nightmares.

As we researched black dogs, Cujo, and bats, we became curious about rabies. Is Cujo’s behavior depicted realistically? Have rabid dogs killed humans? And is rabies a real threat in modern America or anywhere else in the world? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), rabies is a preventable disease that still kills humans in over 150 countries. Ninety-five percent of these deaths occur in Africa and Asia:

Rabies is one of the neglected tropical diseases that predominantly affects poor and vulnerable populations who live in remote rural locations. Although effective human vaccines and immunoglobulins exist for rabies, they are not readily available or accessible to those in need. Globally, rabies deaths are rarely reported and children between the ages of five to fourteen years are frequent victims. Treating a rabies exposure, where the average cost of rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is US $40 in Africa, and US $49 in Asia, can be a catastrophic financial burden on affected families whose average daily income is around US $1–2 per person.⁷

While rabies is not a threat in the modernized world, children in third-world regions seem to be the most at risk. A shocking statistic from WHO purports that the overwhelming majority of human rabies infections come from dogs: 95 percent. This makes sense, as dogs live more closely to humans than most other species, and also lends credence to the believability of Cujo.

Rabies inflames the brain of the victim, whether animal or human, and once symptoms are present there is little hope of survival. It first presents as a rather general sickness, with nausea, fever, and sore throat. As the disease spreads throughout the brain, it will eventually cause seizures, paralysis, and coma. One symptom of rabies would be familiar to fans of Cujo. Rabies has been proven to cause aggressive and irrational behavior. This is depicted in Cujo’s sudden personality change as he quickly changes from lovable pup to vicious killer.