11 Deaths In Kids' Movies That Made You Want To Cry Like A Little Girl
10. Old Yeller - Old Yeller
It's a truth universally acknowledged that if a dog dies in a film then the audience will be in floods of tears. People die in films all the time, but when there's a dog involved you know there's trouble. Anyone who's ever watched Marley & Me will know that you don't really need a plot because if the dog dies you're going to cry. It's such a known phenomena that there's even a whole website dedicated to telling you in which films dogs die, straightforwardly called doesthedogdie.com. Old Yeller does actually have a plot before the tears though, which is nice. A foolish boy becomes friends with a stray dog (always dangerous), which then saves him when he tries to catch a bear cub (even more dangerous). After being taken in by the family, he also saves the boy's older and more sensible brother Travis, proving that he is some sort of magical dog of Lassie proportions that acts as their guardian angel. Then, when were feeling all happy and lovely, he gets rabies. Sure, life is unfair, but seriously!? Not content with giving wonder-dog the actual real-life Rage Virus, 14-year-old Travis decides that he needs to be the one to kill Old Yeller in some sort of ridiculous rite of passage to make himself a man. Nonetheless, Travis arguably brave decision balanced with his love for his dog is devastating enough to still be quoted as one of the most iconic and traumatic deaths - human or animal - in film.
