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American Morning
A History of Dogs Through Pictures
Aired January 23, 2002 - 08:54 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Well if you're not a dog person and you don't have a dog, you probably won't understand us dog owners. It might strike you as strange the way we fawn over our dogs, we dress them, we talk to them, we even take pictures of them.
But if you are a dog owner and none of this sounds odd to you, then CNN's Jeanne Moos has a photo exhibit you and your canine will not want to miss.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're the kind of pictures...
UNKNOWN MALE: Look at this dog.
MOOS: ... you can't blame a kid for wanting to pet. Dogs on bicycles. Dogs in cars. Dogs at war. Dogs with nudes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dog in their natural state with a human in their natural state.
MOOS (on camera): Yes.
There's another nude.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
MOOS (voice-over): Someone once said, in the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, he gave him the dog or in this case, a thousand hounds, a walk with the dogs through the history of photography. You're looking at Queen Victoria's pets.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Watt, Dot, Teaser, Skip, Fly and Nip.
MOOS: Almost a century later, American royalty, JFK, Jr., was filmed playing with his dog.
Anyone who's ever tried to get a dog to pose will understand why the earliest photos show dogs asleep.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the only way they could have captured that dog because the aperture of the camera had to stay open.
MOOS: The subject had to remain motionless from 15 seconds to a minute or two in the early days of photography.
MILES BARTH, CO-CURATOR: Humans they would strap into head braces so they couldn't move.
MOOS: Head braces like the one to your left of the dog. Pets ended up suspended between pieces of furniture to keep them still, held under foot or given a pipe to keep them preoccupied in this photo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They had one man holding his tale.
MOOS: And a string you can barely see holding his head.
And then there's this,...
BARTH: Possibly the earliest photograph of a living dog.
MOOS: From the 1840s, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning's dog, Flush, was sound asleep.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like he's dead.
MOOS (on camera): Yes, it does look like he's dead.
(voice-over): There are photos of famous people ranging from Joan Collins with her pink poodle to Marilyn Monroe. And there are pictures by famous photographers, Man Ray, Andy Warhol, William Wegman.
The co-curators turned their book by the same name into this exhibit, now on view at the UBS PaineWebber lobby in New York.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love my dog so much, and it's like I see my dog in every single one of these.
MOOS: From a big circus lady with a little dog to an Indian contortionist.
(on camera): You couldn't do that, could you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
MOOS: Me neither.
(voice-over): There's even a photo of a man who had his departed pet tattooed on his chest.
Maybe the dog is the only being that loves you more than you love yourself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well this was the first dog ever got the Medal of Honor.
MOOS: During World War I, Stubby (ph) would smell mustard gas coming in long before the soldiers did and start barking. Stubby himself belongs to the Smithsonian. MOOS (on camera): You're joking?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
MOOS: Stubby is stuffed?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MOOS (voice-over): When this German century dog fell into allied hands, they dressed him up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He just looks like Winston Churchill.
MOOS: The exhibit has tongues wagging.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my word, look at that.
MOOS: But they say the reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That story was hotter than a dog's mouth.
Remember you can e-mail us your questions and comments at am@cnn.com. We'll try to get back to you -- Paula.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Never thought about that that they wag their tails more than they (UNINTELLIGIBLE) their mouth.
COOPER: It's true. My dog, Ozzi (ph), was watching that report and he's going to be very excited when I (ph)...
ZAHN: And they're very nonjudgmental. Just loves everything you do.
COOPER: Absolutely.
ZAHN: Of course. All right, thanks, Anderson.
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