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Movie Review: My Dog Skip

WATCHING MY DOG SKIP, I couldn't help thinking about my dog Little Bit. Or rather, my childhood dog, as Skip was Willie Morris' childhood dog. This movie will appeal to everyone whose significant other, at some point in life, has ever been a dog - a real dog.

Little Bit wasn't as clever and clairvoyant as Skip and she wasn't well known by everyone in town, but she was there for me in a way that I needed. A toy terrier-chihuahua mix, with an emphasis on the terrier, white with black spots, Little Bit was a constant, much-needed companion.

To some extent, I identified with young Willie (Frankie Muniz), an only child with no friends and a sense of alienation from his father (Kevin Bacon). To Little Bit, I took my joys and my frustrations. When I vented my rages at her, she suffered silently, but always seemed to understand that I needed her.

My stepfather, who was into possessiveness and self, said to me once, "Little Bit isn't your dog." He considered everything in the house to be his, but I knew otherwise. No matter who pays for the dog, a child's dog is always the child's. There's a spiritual connection, a soul-level bond between a child and dog (as well as between a child and other pets, and an adult and pets). There are all kinds of angels in our lives, and frequently they take the form of cherished pets.

In remembering Skip, the adult Willie (noted editor of Harper's magazine), says in narration, "Loyalty and love are the best things of all - and surely the most lasting." Skip does indeed teach Willie about loyalty and love, and so much more.

Skip is a catalyst and a bridge in Willie's life. Skip quite obviously brings to the relationship his own agenda -- and that agenda is the welfare and blossoming of Willie. As a result of Skip's actions and promptings, Willie becomes accepted by boys at school, makes friends with a girl, and comes out of his shell (and Willie's father transforms along with his son). Willie begins identifying with people himself by noting Skip's acceptance of people. "He likes you," Willie says, meaning that he himself is willing to be friends.

One of the people Skip likes is a black boy around Skip's age; thus, it is through Skip that Willie receives valuable lessons about the lack of racial equality in Mississippi in the early 1940s. The boy is nice and tells Skip about a black athlete in Yazoo who is as good as the white athlete, Dink, admired by Skip and the white community. Willie learns that race need not be a barrier to friendship or appreciation of skills.

My Dog Skip, directed by Jay Russell and written by Gail Gilchriest based on Morris' book, is so much more than a cute dog story or even a nostalgic memoir of another era or the innocence and challenges of childhood, although it is all of those things. It is another testament to the interconnectedness of life; all life -- all creatures great and small, as spiritual sages and author-veterinarian James Herriot remind us -- is part of one universal Force or Spirit. When an animal such as Skip so blatantly and directly guides a person's life and helps that person have a fuller and richer life, there is no denying that a spiritual connection is working. Skip is a descendant of a long line of faithful canines that stretch our understandings of the role of pets in our lives and of the nature of life itself. One notable ancestor is Greyfriars Bobby, the Skye terrier who kept vigil at his owner's grave in Edinburgh, Scotland, for fourteen years, until his own death in 1872.

I am fortunate to have seen the bronze statue of Bobby in Edinburgh, and I'm fortunate to have seen the monument to Skip that is the movie. Dogs like these are truly inspirational. It's okay if the world goes to the dogs if the dogs are like Little Bit, Bobby, and Skip.