Shortening of the anterior papillary muscle of the left ventricle was demonstrated in six intact, tranquilized dogs. Two small metal markers that had been surgically implanted 3–50 months earlier were cineradiographically photographed during approximately ten sequential cardiac cycles in each of two orthogonal positions. Distances between markers were plotted for successive frames. The resulting curves were used to obtain maximum velocities of papillary muscle shortening and lengthening: 1.08 ± 0.29 muscle lengths/sec and 1.39 ± 0.48 muscle lengths/sec, respectively. From the two orthogonal planes, the average maximum spatial distance and the average minimum spatial distance between the markers were calculated. The mean percent shortening of 22.8 ± 6.5% was surprisingly large: it approximated the distance from the foot to the peak of the ascending limb of the myocardial length-tension curve derived from isolated muscle studies. Mechanical studies on isolated papillary muscle have consistently shown reduced shortening with increasing loads. Since the in vivo dog papillary muscle has been reported to be under considerable tension during systole, there appears to be some contradiction between the degree of shortening found in the present study and the shortening observed in isolated papillary muscle studies.