Citation :
« While [Nell] Shipman was trying to find investors for the new feature The Girl from God's Country, she was also trying to hang onto Joseph Walker as cinematographer. When he was getting low on funds, 'she dashed out a one-reeler story about a boy, dog and a bear to keep [him] busy. [He] was to direct, photograph and have complete charge of making it. In turn, [he'd] receive half the profit.' Walker's version of the arrangement for creative control may be as they discussed it, but Tom Trusky credits Shipman and Bert Van Tuyle as directors, with Walker listed only as photographer. [...] A Bear, a Boy, and a Dog (1921, 20 minutes) is one of many one- and two-reelers that Shipman wrote and directed independently. Referring to them as 'bits and pieces, 'fillers' made while we waited for my percentage of the take on the big picture [Back to God's Country],' Shipman disparages their distribution sources as 'Poverty Row Independents' and their exhibition venues as 'small-time State's Righters' (i.e., the southern circuit). Originally entitled Saturday Off and shot in 1920, the little film was retitled A Bear, a Boy, and a Dog and copyrighted in 1921. »
-- Kay Armatage

Source :
ARMATAGE, Kay. The Girl from God's Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2003. [en anglais] (p. 265)