UP

I realize I'm very late to the game on this... but once I missed it in theaters, I had to wait for it to come out on DVD. UP became available this week, and since I had a rainy day off from work yesterday, it was a perfect opportunity to finally watch it.

And let me say... it did not disappoint. It's a BEAUTIFUL movie, with a very touching storyline, lots of humor and it provides a fantastic portrayal of dogs.

When the movie originally came out, I had read an article in The BARK magazine that looked at the movie from a "dog perspective." From that, I learned that Pixar had consulted Dr. Ian Dunbar - he's pretty much a rock star in the animal behavior and training community - to make sure that their portrayal of the dogs in the film was as accurate as possible.

Dug wearing the "Cone of Shame"

That was all I needed to hear. And the movie definitely lived up to my expectations. Dug - the Golden Retriever/Lab mix that is the main dog character - was perfect. From his body language to his actual speech and speech patterns... it was so on point that you could almost forget that dogs don't usually have the ability to communicate with speech.

I got the DVD through Netflix, but I'm planning to go buy the 2-disk deluxe edition that includes a short film featuring Dug called "Dug's Special Mission" and a documentary called "Canine Companions" that showcases the amount of study that went into crafting the dogs in the film. There are interviews with Dr. Dunbar and footage of lectures he gave the Pixar animation crew about dog psychology.

If you haven't seen it... you're missing out. Any dog lover will want to watch it again and again.