Dougan dedicated himself to puppet art in grammar school, when he started visiting the back-stage of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre. Studying the well-known Žogica Marogica by Malik and Pengov in 1951, Dougan for the first time discovered the mysteries o f the world of objects brought alive. Although he graduated from the Department of Geography at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, he decided to make the puppet his vocation. A permanent member of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, which he becam e in 1957, he has, over 40 years, created more than 140 various roles, with the great suggestive power of a top artist. His animation is characterized by virtuoso command of the most varied puppet techniques: "javajke", glove- and shadow puppets, objects, and above all marionettes, which in his hands come to life in all their fragile beauty.