In Dog Days the humans are highly tamable. They go through the standard romantic comedy tricks with smiles on their faces and great slathering enthusiasm. I was tempted to give them breed types and cute little canine monikers.
The dogs, were however, just dogs, content to be filmed cute, go through the motions with a disaffected and semi confused look on their faces as to what their trainers really wanted them to do. The confusion is understandable because for half the plot of the movie these canines are being handed down from caretaker to caretaker and family to family.
The casualness of the adoptions just blurred Dog Days larger message: the family that you have now may not be the family you were REALLY meant to have. This distinction applies to both man and beast.
The lack of canine cutesy had me wondering whether director Ken Marino was slightly dog phobic, confused as to what to do with his canine cast or just didn’t want the animals to upstage the human antics. Considering the old adage about actors working with dogs and kids (of which there are two babies, one precocious toddler and one smart ass but good hearted teen), I concluded that option three applied.
Dog Days is a group romantic comedy that is content to let their humans be nice, kind hearted and loyal and their dogs to be good boys and girls.
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