Big Red, also known simply as Red, is the titular protagonist of Disney's live-action film of the same name. He is the champion Irish Setter who only wants to run through the woods, rather than to be a well-trained show dog his wealthy sportsman owner James Haggin wants.
Big Red was portrayed by a dog called Champion Red Aye Scraps.
Biography[]
In the beginning, Haggin purchases Red at the Montreal Kennel Club show and wants him to be a perfectly trained and groomed show dog. However, Red longs for adventures in the woods. Rene Dumont, a French-Canadian orphan who lives in the woods after his uncle's death, arrives at Wintapi on foot where he is hired to exercise Red who becomes attached to him. But whenever Red is attracted to the boy, Haggin refuses to take orders from someone else and has to separate the two. Rene is told by the dog handler, Emile Fornet, that Red has to obey Haggin to win a dog show. Otherwise, Haggin would have to sell Red.
Later that night, Red sees Rene out in the window; he receives a bid good-bye from Rene but doesn't want to see him going away. Immediately, Red manages to get out of the house by crashing through a window. After he finally beaks out of the house, however, Red is cut by the piece of window glass. As Haggin orders Emile to put Red to sleep, Rene takes Red and sneaks away with him to his late uncle's cabin deep in the woods to nurse him back to health. When Red is brought back to his owner, Haggin offers to give Rene his job back, but Rene wants to work at the neighboring dairy farm instead. Red has a scar and is unable to be a show dog after all, but is still valuable for stud. This, however, leads to Haggin still being able to sell Red; he ships him by train to Montreal along with Red's attractive mate, a female dog named Mollie, who is also an Irish Setter and becomes pregnant.
With the train engineers being distracted shooing a moose off the railroad track, Red and Mollie escape from the baggage car and into the wild. While the two dogs are adventuring through the wilderness, Rene is informed that Red is gone and takes the train to where he and Mollie were last seen. The dogs soon find a maternity den just when Red is reunited with Rene. And there, Mollie gives birth to four baby puppies and she and Red become the proud parents. Together, Red is strolling through the wilderness with a large family, while Haggin sets out to find Rene who has not shown up for work at the dairy farm. But before their reunion, Rene and a dog family find Haggin encountering a ferocious cougar. To save Haggin, Red fights off a cougar and Rene then shoots it with a gun. After that, Haggin makes a deal with Rene to keep Big Red and his family and live with him. Rene accepts it and they all walk back home to Wintapi.