Hotel for Dogs
Take two abandoned kids and a stampede of totally abandoned stray dogs. Put them in an woefully abandoned hotel. Add plenty of wacky mechanical devices and you will have a Hotel for Dogs.
A great movie for dog-lovers and connoisseurs of crazy contraptions. Not recommended for movie fans looking for reality in Fantasyland on the silver screen. The movie Hotel for Dogs should be watched without popcorn.
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Dreamworks Pictures took a book written by Lois Duncan, gave it to Jeff Lowell, Robet Schooley and Mark McCorkle to re-write it for the silver screen and paid Thor Freudenthal to direct the resulting screenplay. Thus, in 2009, the movie Hotel for Dogs was produced.
The story was supposed to be about two kids, 16-year-old Andi, played by Emma Roberts and her 11-year-old brother, Bruce, played by Jake Austin. However, the movie was over-run, over-whelmed and totally dominated by dogs. Big dogs, small dog, fat dogs, thin dogs, short-haired dogs, long-haired dogs. All kinds of dogs. There is a very good chance that any dog-lover watching this movie would find his canine companion’s breed represented on the silver screen.
The dog-in-chief was Friday, a Jack Russell Terrier. This breed originated from dogs bred and used by Reverend John Russell in the early 19th century. It is derived from the now extinct English White Terrier and is unique in that it has preserved its working ability and appearance over the last two centuries. It has similar origins with the modern Fox Terrier.
The Jack Russell Terrier is a very active dog which needs a lot of exercise. Not recommended as a pet for couch potatoes, for sure. It is small, measuring only 10-15 inches at the withers but it is tough and tenacious. Its color is mainly white with black or tan markings on a dense double coat. The Jack Russell Terrier is also long-lived with an average life-span of 14-21 years.
A very well-known Jack Russell Terrier was Nipper, born in 1884, which was the inspiration for the painting that is now named His Master’s Voice. This painting had been used by many companies in the music industry including The Gramophone Company and EMI. Today this painting of Nipper is still in use in the logo of HMV in UK and Europe.
In the movie, Friday, the Jack Russell Terrier, belonged to Andi and her brother, Bruce. These two kids were orphans and Friday was the only steady companion they had as they were shunted from one foster home to another. One day, while looking for a place to hide Friday from their latest non-dog-loving foster parents, they came upon an abandoned hotel.
Soon they transformed the abandoned hotel into a home for abandoned dogs. Bruce was a mechanical whiz kid and he invented all kinds of crazy contraptions to improve the quality of life for the dogs. The one I liked best was the doggie-loo, which was actually not such a far-fetched idea at all because I have trained my own dog to do its thing in the loo as well.
One of Bruce’s inventions which would definitely not be marketable was a device which a dog can use to pick a shoe off a shelf. To chew on it. Dogs certainly do not need any more help in getting their teeth on our shoes.
So go and have a good time watching this improbable movie or the Hotel for Dogs DVD. With your dog, perhaps. However, it’s best to leave the popcorn for later. Laughing aloud with your mouth full of popcorn is not recommended in crowded places.
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