Dog Overboard

Synopsis

It's the summer holidays and the German captain of a cargo boat takes his entire family - his wife, his ten-year-old son Klaus and his five-year-old daughter Andrea - on a river cruise to Czechoslovakia. The children have secretly smuggled their fox terrier Jackie on board. The barge sailor Ferdinand is travelling with them. A grumpy man, he is annoyed by the children and their dog. Jackie slips on the wet deck boards and falls into the river Elbe, but is saved by the crew from a Czechoslovak boat travelling in the opposite direction. After a while the children realise that their dog is gone and suspect that Ferdinand has thrown him into the river. They persuade their father to anchor the boat and with their mother's help begin searching for the dog, but to no avail. At night, Klaus hears a dog barking and followed by his adamant sister he takes a dinghy and once again goes ashore to look for Jackie. The children lose their way in the rocks. They meet a group of Czech children playing Indians. Despite the language barrier they eventually reach an agreement and the children bring them dogs from the entire neighbourhood. In the meantime the parents have asked the police for help, and Ferdinand is likewise searching for the escaped children of his own accord. Finally the family is happily re-united. Although Andrea has chosen a replacement dog, she eventually returns it to the Czech children on their way back after the sailors from the Czechoslovak ship deliver Jackie to the family in the town of Hřensko.