Placed in a foster home that doesn't allow pets, 16-year-old Andi and her younger brother, Bruce, turn an abandoned hotel into a home for their dog. Soon other strays arrive, and the hotel becomes a haven for every orphaned canine in town. But the kids have to do some quick thinking to keep the cops off their tails.
This movie contains 4 potentially triggering events.
Yes!!! There is an offscreen death during the pound scene early on in a movie!!!! Potentially triggering for adults or older children who understand the fairly obvious context clues.
We see dogs being kept in cages in a dog pound - while there's no physical abuse, the man running it is very menacing, and there's a poster saying dogs will be killed after 72 hours
One dog is missing a leg. It’s possible the dog was born without a leg or had to have it removed. The dog is able to run around and play just fine though and is a very happy pupper.
It likely happened behind the scenes in the context of spaying and neutering. None of the male dogs appear to be “intact”, thus they all got neutered. The process of being fixed isn’t seen on screen but since most dogs are spayed and neutered it can be assumed this happened to the dogs off camera.
Not in the movie, but a theme of the movie is the kids have foster parents because their parents died. It's mentioned they've been with a lot of different foster parents, and there's the threat that if they do't get on with their current ones, the brother and sister will be split up so someone will foster them
None of the children’s toys are destroyed, however many dog toys are chewed and ripped up like dogs do. However the dogs still enjoy playing with their toys.
The police could be considered a minor antagonist in the film, the kids even get arrested at the end of the film even though they were doing the right (albeit somewhat wrong thing for the right reason) thing. The police also take away all of their dogs. The dogs and kids are fine in the end.
The boy is somewhat autism coded and he’s abused by his foster parents, however they’re mean to both him and his sister so it’s not autism specific. Lots of other kids make fun of him though due to him being “different” and “weird”.
The boy and the dogs have to hide in a small room to avoid being caught, and the dogs are very worried. One dog ends up howling because he’s very scared, and that ends up leading to them being found.
Lots of kids bully the boy because of him being “weird”, which can be seen as ableist. For instance in one scene there’s a pizza and all the other boys take pieces of pizza before he has a chance to get a slice which makes him very sad.