Breaking the chains: Creator of comic strip ‘Mutts’ frees his Guard Dog character after decades

By MARK KENNEDY
AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Something is different on the comics pages this week. In the panels of “Mutts,” there’s the long-delayed sight of freedom. Patrick McDonnell, the cartoonist who draws the popular strip, has freed his character Guard Dog, liberating an animal who has become for decades a symbol of the cruelty of dog chaining. McDonnell tells The Associated Press: “it has to happen.” Fans of Guard Dog would regularly plead with McDonnell to free the mutt but the artist was also lobbied by animal welfare groups to keep the dog chained as a way to increase the spotlight on the issue.