Sunday Review: My Dog the Champion

Rescued

By Morris Dean

My Dog the Champion (2014, directed by Kevin & Robin Nations, produced in part by American Dog Rescue) is not the sort of film I watch – it's way too wholesome and predictable – but I love dogs, and the film's teenage heroine, Maddy [Dora Madison Burge was actually 22 when she played the part], is winsome in both body and character.
    It's one of those movies sometimes described as "heart-warming," and if you're in need of heart-warming (and like dogs well enough and don't mind predictability), I could recommend it to you. Plus, Maddy's grandfather, Billy (played by Lance Henriksen), has some really beautiful long horn cattle on his Texas ranch (not to mention a really, really talented dog as well).

    We meet Maddy at home with her mother and grandmother, who hasn't lived with Billy for years – she got tired of his hard-core way of requiring everyone to "earn his keep." Upon first introduction, Maddy seems a bit spoiled and too much in love with her iPod and texting. When her mother's Army deployment comes up suddenly, coinciding with her grandmother's trip abroad to do charity work, they need to find someone for Maddy to stay with for two or three months. Maddy makes a face and lets them know that she'd rather stay with her girlfriend Zoey. Billy probably doesn't even have a cellular signal out there in the country....
    But that's the whole point: Maddy has to be a bit artificial and spoiled so that a summer on Billy's ranch, where she will be washing dishes, milking cows, and helping his despondent dog (Scout) get over his depression can teach her What's Really Important In Life....(Scout had witnessed the death of his companion herding-dog Magnus when a rattlesnake spooked Billy's prize bull.)

    One thing that unfolds, though, caught me by surprise, and it might you, too. I just can't be wholly down on a predictable movie that manages to surprise in such a wholesome way, rescuing more critters than anticipated.

Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean