His gaze is strong yet steady and calm. One expects a pit bull to look threatening, but with Oogy's missing ear and crooked mouth, he does not look threatening at all. His direct gaze immediately engages the viewer and invites empathy. Our response is a purely emotional one. The cover photograph is hard to look at because Oogy is so physically damaged. Yet, the visual message is indeterminate. There is no guide to interpretation, which means that people coming from different cultural paradigms will use different codes in order to decipher the message encrypted in the same image .One might assume that the dog underwent an accident or was beaten or was even born this way. The main strength of the image is the force with which it invokes unconscious identification, hence the powerful impact that the photo has at emotional level. The words of the story really connect the visual to the emotional response and provide solid support for the argument that dog fighting is very wrong. The picture shows what happened, but it is the words that explain the "how" and "why."

The interpretation of the messages, whether words or images is conditioned by the connotations which they bear. It is true that the symbols are not subject to personal interpretation, but have universal meanings. It is just as true that there are patterns of human symbolic action and the interpretation is guided by them. The differences between them make different people see different things in the same image. The image of a dog whose face is badly damaged by inspire pity or shock the viewer, but we are still far from arriving at the message according to which dog fighting is wrong...

The point-of-view is a subjective one, as the viewer may very well be the person who took the photo. The direct eye contact ensures that the emotional impact will occur. Empathy is therefore created. It would have been a lot more difficult to achieve the same impact through the exclusive use of words.
We notice that the red color is used in the font spelling the dog's name. The heart surrounding the word "dog" and the collar with a heart that he is wearing are also red. The color is a symbol of love, just like the heart is. On the one hand the viewer must understand that a dog has a heart, just like a human has. This makes dog fighting immoral. In addition, the fact that the word "dog" appears within a red heart suggests that the dog needs love. "Love" becomes a key concept and is also present in the subtitle "the dog only a family could love." The font which spells the dog's name is roundish -- this creates a pleasant impact. The connotations of the shape and color evoke feelings of affection and joy- which contrast with the sad expression of the dog. The subtitle, connected with the other visual elements suggests that the dog needs a family to love him, that his place is in a caring family and not in a fighting ring.

Works Cited

Levin, Larry. Oogy: A Dog Only a Family Could Love. New York: Grand Central Publishing,

2010.

Stoner, Mark R., & Perkins, Sally J. Making Sense of Messages: A Critical Apprenticeship in Rhetorical Criticism. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1995. 297-319