It is Labor Day weekend, 1946. Young, virginal Ida Parsons innocuously plays with her German Shepherds as her father hosts a raucous party inside their small island cabin. Amid the festivities, an older, drunken man named Tom Rice staggers outside and propositions Ida. When she refuses, he chases her into the woods and brutally rapes her; her dogs, hearing her muffled cries for help, break out of their pen and track her down in the woods, where they attack and fatally maul Ida's rapist. As Tom lies dying, Ida beats him to death with a log.