I finally got to see Hotel for Dogs. After helping to staff a table for the Montgomery County Humane Society at three area theaters when the film first opened, at last it was my turn to actually see the picture. And it was a lot of fun!
As with Marley, there are a few flaws in the concept, but overall it’s a family-friendly “tail” of entertainment that ends on a clever note. In this case, the flaw is the way the local “pound” is depicted — run by men who are uncaring, and focusing simply on getting unwanted dogs off the streets and out of people’s way as fast as possible, rather than on compassion and giving strays a chance at being matched with a new, loving family. There’s a reference as the plot builds to a “no kill” shelter just across the county line, but no explanation that not all pounds are shelters, and vice versa, let alone that there’s even such a thing as an open admission shelter that can be no kill. But I understand that omission — that’s a discussion that is truthfully beyond the scope of this kid pic and one I hope to take up later in this blog.
So the discerning viewer should consider these two aspects: Entertainment value (high for its target audience), and bottom line — whether the human characters do right by the canines (ultimately, yes). What’s not to love about a cast of dozens of multicultural dogs who’ve been so perfectly trained to behave as a team? They not only sit, bark, and high five on cue, they also take care of bidness together. The Hotel ultimately gets converted into a high end adoption center, boarding facility, and retail pet supply shop all in one, and even the kids (Emma Roberts, Jake Austin) get a happy ending when their social worker (Don Cheadle) and his wife adopt them.
There’s also an abundance of product placement advertising for Pedigree dog food, which made me wonder a couple of times if I was watching a feature-length commercial that happened to have a story wrapped around it. Nevertheless, Pedigree is to be commended for its campaign to promote pet adoptions from shelters — a theme reflected in the commercials developed for Super Bowl.
In a nuanced way, Hotel offers up a critique not only of those animal facilities that are inhumane, but also of the foster child system in the U.S. If we can learn that animals’ lives are not to throw away, then surely we can act on the underlying theme that children’s lives also are to to throw away. We still have a lot to learn about the human-animal bond, how to foster and protect it.
Our rating: 8.7 kongs
OK, so John Grogan didn’t adopt Marley the ideal way. His journalist colleague was clueless about everything that caring for an animal involves. The breeder wasn’t what I’d call responsible, i.e., she didn’t screen the Grogans as prospective owners in terms of their knowledge of the breed’s characteristics, the extra work raising a puppy entails, and the couple’s capability to adapt their lifestyle while getting the right kind of training for that particular doggone-ality.
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