The 'Dog Day' Tape: Pink Floyd’s Lost 15-Minute Steel Guitar Jam from the 1977 'Animals' Sessions

Among Pink Floyd collectors, few artifacts are as mythic as the so-called “Dog Day” tape — an acetate lacquer cut from the 1977 Animals sessions at Britannia Row Studios. It contains a single 15-minute instrumental jam built around the chord changes that later became “Dogs,” but with a completely different feel: loose, exploratory, and driven by a steel guitar overdub that David Gilmour laid down and then walked away from.

The steel guitar part is the strange centerpiece. Gilmour, not known for pedal steel, apparently borrowed one for the session and recorded a long, sliding, almost country-tinged solo over the band’s simmering rhythm track. The acetate — sometimes called the “Dog Day” tape because of a handwritten label referencing a hot summer session — was cut for reference and then shelved. When the band returned to the song, they abandoned the steel entirely, shaping “Dogs” into the tense, multi-part epic that appears on the finished album. The acetate remains a tantalizing glimpse of a road not taken.