I guess I am really hard to impress.
I saw it the first weekend it came out. Read the article on the cover of Time.
I liked it. Saw it two or three more times while on dates.
Years later I watched it with my kids, introducing them to popular culture in the same way I did showing them Bambi and Lion King.
My wife showed them Old Yeller when they were 3 or so. I came home with about half an hour left in the movie. I asked my wife if she was crazy, showing them that movie. She asked why? (She had never seen it.) Just about that moment the screams and cries started in the other room.
I laughed my ass off.
Yeah what a bummer ending. But I loved that movie as a kid. Fess Parker was Davy Crockett and he was the dad in that film.
The morale? Get your dogs their rabies shots.