Did he HAVE to hang the dog?

I could not watch that scene, in fact, I could not watch the film after that. Animals suffering at the hands of people break my heart.

I don't see why he had to kill the dog in the first place.

I think Fresh felt the dog was a danger and had to get rid of him. As to why he felt the need to hang the dog and shoot the dog, I always intepreted that as something Fresh had read somewhere or had seen in a movie or something and believed it was the proper way to put a dog to sleep. I don't think he was going it just to be cruel or whatever.

Yeah I hate that part too, and it was such a pretty dog. :(

My take on the dog scene is this:

There are lots of scenes in lots of movies that aren't 100% clear, but people don't tend to question them until they're offended. For some reason a person being shot doesn't seem to shock many people, but an animal being killed ALWAYS shocks people.

The scene is meant to be difficult to watch. First off, they make it quite clear that the dog is a menace. Chucky trained the dog to be nasty, and without an owner it's just a stray who is bound to attack someone.

He's also testing himself. He's got to see if he really has the guts to do it, and like his dad explains to him, he's got to learn not to be afraid to sacrifice some small pieces in order to take the king.

That scene was very difficult for me to watch but the entire movies was almost too difficult to watch. Especially when his little girlfriend laid there dying. Oh My God!

This is a very tearjerking scene in the movie. As we all saw in previous scenes, Fresh had a best friend named Chuckie, a Puerto-Rican preteen. Chuckie's behavior best exemplifies an all-to-familiar beginning of some inner city drug dealers as they initiate this dangerous, illegal profession. Having watched several episodes of Animal Planet's "Animal Precinct and "Animal Cops: Detroit," it is a well-known fact that dogfighting is a cruel and illegal sport often held in inner-city areas. Drug dealers and gangs often stage these dogfights as a way to make extra money for drug supplies, as well as to provide a form of gaming and to boost morale.

Kids as young as nine or ten often start training either adopted dogs or strays to fight since this is one of the ways they could improve their "tough and featless" image that drug dealers often seek. Pitbulls are the most easily trained dogs for this sport, since this breed was conceived specifically for this purpose. Many inner city areas have large numbers of pitbulls that have either been abandoned because they cannot fight anymore due to injury or age, or are the result of strays that have reproduced. Therefore, it is very easy for these kids to get a hold of these dogs and train them to fight. In fact, dogfighters sometimes eject narcotics into these dogs before fights to make them impervious to pain, as well as to make them more aggressive. This is a very cruel sport indeed.

Back to the film, Chuckie has found a stray pitbull, and has trained it to fight with other neighborhood dogs in preparation for an illegal gambling fight in the neighborhood. We see the typical dogfight; people betting on each dog to win by taking down the other. This scene sometimes brings tears to my eyes: "Do people really do this to these poor animals?" Chuckie's dog wins the fight by killing the other dog in less than a minute, which shows the brutal nature of the sport. This victory provides a great emotional boost for Chuckie, which only results in him revealing more of his recent new job as a runner for Esteban's heroin gang. The cocaine dealer, Corky, gets wind of his plan and so greatly fears his enterprise is in jeopardy thanks to this kid revealing the secrets of a neighborhood competitor. After Fresh and he retrieve heroin hidden by Esteban, they are ambushed by some of Corky's thugs. Chuckie, still feeling a great emotional "kick" from the dogfight as well as his appointment by Esteban, brazenly draws a pistol and shoots at the dealers. Fresh drops his booty and runs, while Chuckie unfortunately meets his doom.

The next day, Fresh, deeply saddened by the loss of his friend, has figured out the dog, Roscoe, is the only remaining symbol of friendship between Chuckie and him. It appears to me that the dog is seen as an extension of Chuckie, just in a dog, rather than a human. There can be found a great amount of parallelism between Roscoe and Chuckie; for instance, both Chuckie and Roscoe were just beginning their tough lives: Chuckie a drug-runner, and Roscoe a fighting dog. In addition, Chuckie and Roscoe were seemingly lost in the ghetto world; Chuckie can be a really nice kid, but poverty has created hardship, and a desire for a better life has resulted in him conducting illegal activities. In Roscoe's case, he seems like a friendly dog, but yet is forced to fight the other dog because of training. Therefore, it can be noted that both Chuckie and Roscoe really did not want to be bad, they were caught up in the cultures of the ghetto.

To this end, Fresh, in my opinion, decides to shoot the dog for these reasons. First, Chuckie is dead now, and since the dog was a symbol of their friendship, he decided to drop all aspects of this friendship and put the past behind. Second, most urban animal shelters will not place pitbulls with a history of fighting up for adoption due to their aggressive tendencies; Roscoe would have been put to sleep anyway. Finally, it is quite possible that Fresh wanted to put Roscoe out of his misery, so that he would never have to fight again.

The dogfighting scene and the dog shooting scene are very sad scenes that bring tears to my eyes. However, they serve to juxtapose the nature of the ghetto and the illict culture that unfortuately makes these places seeminly inhospitable. I would find it hard to believe anyone not moved by these scenes.

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