We all know it: dogs (or half-breed wolves, as is Lobo - Rin Tin Tin - in the present film), are highly intelligent persons.
Perfectly fit for the hard and sometimes merciless life of the wild, Lobo suddenly changes the rough instinctual habits instilled in him by mother nature when Dave Weston, a young prospector, relieves the dog's pain by removing from his paw a large thorne, like Androcles and the lion. It (I'd rather say: he, the dog) is now tame, and deserts the pack, his mate and the puppies, to become, all in a jiff, the loving pet in Dave's log cabin near the village.
The village's people have always known Lobo and are very aware of the dangers the dog/wolf has ever represented for their cattle and for themselves. It is therefore important to make Lobo unrecognizable, otherwise he will be immediately shot to death. And the device Dave and friends devise for that purpose has something magical, inexplicable and at the same time devoid of all sense: they put on Lobo's snout a fake beard! You heard me: a fake human beard. And it works!
Lobo then, in the course of the movie, performs all and every number that are requested from a canine or wolfish film-star, and something more: understands or even prevents every wish - spoken or unspoken - of his owner, talks with him by body language, takes spectacular leaps of any sort, attacks villains (though never killing them, it will be unproper), and so on, on a series of events none of which appears to be less predictable. Except when Dave, that is left alone, wounded, with no help or horse, in the middle of the desert, is found in the next scene in perfect health in the jolly company of his girlfriend and Lobo.
