[1] Most of the characters in the series are anthropomorphizations of dogs, hence the title of the cartoon, although there are a few exceptions, most notably Dogtanian's two sidekicks Pip the mouse and Planchet the bear, among several others.
The story, set in 17th-century France, follows a young Dogtanian (D'Artagnan (ダルタニヤン) in the original Japanese version and voiced by Satomi Majima (間嶋 里美) and D'Artacán in the Spanish version) who travels from Béarn to Paris in order to become one of King Louis XIII of France's musketeers (they are referred to as musketeers throughout the cartoon and only the title calls them 'Muskehounds').
He quickly befriends three musketeers (Porthos, Athos and Aramis), saving Juliette, a maid-in-waiting for Queen Anne of Austria.
By the time he was part of the newly-formed BRB Internacional, after signing important contracts with animation studios for broadcast and merchandising, Claudio decided to do an original series instead, based on his favorite childhood books.
BRB's scripwriting theme created a "clean and polished" product, removing most of the dark undertones of the original novel: the novel was set in a chaotic period of French history, with violence happening throughout.
[1] The series was produced in 1981 by BRB International and Nippon Animation[1] and was first broadcast by MBS in Japan, where it began airing on 9 October of that year.
After it ended, it was replaced by Jarinko Chie in its timeslot, which had been moved from a 5pm Saturday slot on a handful of affiliates and was finally shown on much of the network as consequence.
[12] The series competed with Ninja Hattori-kun, and despite competition from similar shows at the time, merchandising was released in Japan.
[1] Before long, it was sold to numerous TV channels around the world, including RTP in Portugal, RAI in Italy, the BBC in the United Kingdom and TF1 in France, to high ratings.
[13] In 1984, it was broadcast in Brazil on Rede Manchete on the children's show Clube da Criança when Xuxa Meneghel was its host.
In the mid-2000s, the compilation film, released there under the home video title Lord Dog, aired on TV Brasília in the period when the station had disaffiliated itself from RedeTV!.
In the United Kingdom during the late 1980s, Video Collection International Ltd. released multiple episodes of Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds on VHS after its broadcast on the BBC from 1985 to 1987, and its reruns on ITV from 1988 to 1990.
In this version Dogtanian is referred to as Dartacan, his Spanish name, and the theme is sung with high voices, similar to the original opening, and rendered in a style reminiscent of the French dub.
The film maintains the original series opening main theme tune composed by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis.