Someday, someone will do a study on how many dogs or cats are rescued from shelters or adopted after a movie like “A Dog’s Way Home” comes out. Over the years we have all heard about dogs that have gone through a miracle journey of hundreds or even thousands of miles to find their way back to their owner. Despite this, this story is not a true one and I thought that a better movie could have been made with a true story. This is a good movie about a Dog who gets separated from its owner and finds its way home and along the way goes through several hellish and depressing experiences. The worst part of this journey was when he wound up with a homeless man played by the actor Edward James Olmos – a part I would have left out of this movie. The dog also befriends a mountain lion and I thought that a flaw in this movie was the poorly rendered CGI for the mountain lion that looked very fake.

Several good things stand out about this film, starting with the incredible loyalty of dogs, who will go through anything to be with their owners. Where this level of loyalty and love comes from with mans best friend is one of the best things about owning a dog. As with most movies about pets, the downside of shelters and the realities of laws about controlling animal population comes up. The law in this movie is that Pit Bulls are outlawed in the Denver Colorado area, the reasons for this rather obvious due to the extremely severe damage a dog like this can cause with the strength of its bite.

This movie stars the actress Ashley Judd, who for several years after her extremely hot career in the 1990’s has been making movies like this one, forgoing a return to the big movie star status she had about 15 years ago. This movie is not for the younger children as some of the scenes would probably be too intense, but for any child over 13 I would say its an acceptable family movie.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is only 60%, I would give this an average 70% rating due to some of the flaws, but overally I do recommend A Dog’s Way Home.