The puppy in “Apocalypse Now” is last seen being taken by the soldiers after the raid on the Vietnamese village. Its ultimate fate is not shown or discussed in the film.
In Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” a film that explores the horrors of the Vietnam War, a puppy makes a brief but memorable appearance. During a scene where the American soldiers raid a Vietnamese village, Lance, one of the soldiers played by Sam Bottoms, finds a puppy and decides to keep it. The puppy is seen being cuddled and cared for by the soldiers, providing a moment of innocence and tenderness amidst the chaos of war.
As the film progresses, the puppy is seen less and less. After the raid, the soldiers take the puppy with them on their boat, the PBR (Patrol Boat, River). However, as the narrative focuses on the psychological turmoil of the characters and the increasingly surreal journey upriver to find Colonel Kurtz, the puppy’s presence fades into the background.
The film does not explicitly reveal what happens to the puppy after it is taken aboard the boat. The lack of information about the puppy’s fate is consistent with the film’s themes of the unpredictability and senselessness of war. The puppy’s disappearance from the story can be seen as a metaphor for the loss of innocence and the casualties of war that often go unnoticed or unmentioned.