Mi amigo Rusty

The Adventures of Rusty is about a boy struggling through the remarriage of his father. When he finds an aggressive and untrusting German Shepherd, Rusty, he starts training him to be his pet. The resentment and distrust that Danny Mitchell feels towards his new 'mother' parallels Rusty's distrust of Danny and the world.

Ace the Wonder Dog gives a great performance as 'Rusty.' There are no obvious places where they added noises to the dog (growls, yelps, barks, etc.) His performance is very believable. That dog is a good actor and very well trained.

At times this movie can be a little melodramatic, and has a fairly predictable ending, although it does add a few unexpected elements. The Germans aren't viewed in a terribly favorable light, but that is to be expected, as this film was made during World War II. Rusty was a German dog. Although it does exactly say why he was so aggressive, it implies that the German methods create a fearsome, untrusting dog. This, of course, would be a generalization, but German dog training methods as a general rule are stricter (although it doesn't create aggressive dogs).

Nothing incredible about this movie, but it is fun to watch with a solid script, good values, fair acting and great dogs.