Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale (stylised as Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tail Tale) is a 1986 New Zealand animated comedy film based on cartoonist Murray Ball's comic strip Footrot Flats about a New Zealand farmer and his border collie sheepdog. The film was written by Ball and Tom Scott, directed by Ball, and produced by John Barnett and Pat Cox, with music by Dave Dobbyn. The voice cast includes leading New Zealand actors John Clarke, Peter Rowley, Rawiri Paratene, Fiona Samuel and Billy T. James. It was New Zealand's first feature-length animated film. The film was released in November 1986 in New Zealand by Kerridge-Odeon, and opened in Australia on 9 April 1987. Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale grossed $2,500,000 at the New Zealand box office (making it one of the most successful local films of the 1980s). In Australia, it grossed $4,317,000 which is equivalent to $11 million in 2016. Plot Set in a rural environs outside the fictional town of Raupo in New Zealand, the film centres on sheep and cattle farmer Wal Footrot (John Clarke) and his border collie sheepdog named Dog (Peter Rowley). Wal is assisted on his farm, Footrot Flats, by his nature-loving neighbour Cooch Windgrass (Peter Hayden), local boy Rangi Jones (Rawiri Paratene) and Wal's niece Pongo Footrot (Fiona Samuel). Wal and Cooch are menaced by their unpleasant neighbours, the Murphys, comprising patriarch Irish (Peter Hayden) and his two sons Spit (Brian Sergent) and Hunk (Marshall Napier), who attempt to steal Cooch's deer and stag. When the Murphys buzz Wal's shearing shed from their "deer slayer" helicopter, Dog is stampeded into a sheep dip and starts to drown. This prompts a flashback sequence in which Dog recalls being given as a puppy to Wal by Aunt Dolly (Dorothy McKegg), and first meeting his future girlfriend Jess. Wal's two non-farming preoccupations are his girlfriend, local hairdresser Cheeky Hobson (Fiona Samuel), and impressing a selector for New Zealand's national rugby team, the All Blacks. Dog opposes Wal's relationship with Cheeky, but has problems of his own when Jess is swept away in a flood and ends up at the Murphys' farm, where she is threatened by rats and ferocious "croco-pigs". Dog saves Jess from the rats, but the two dogs are then hunted by Irish Murphy. Meanwhile, Rangi has managed to get Wal away from a rugby game and over to the Murphys' farm. Dog and