A Dog's Way Home (2019)

A Dog's Way Home (2019) Full Recap

Under an abandoned house in Denver, a tiny puppy lives with her mother, her brother, and sister, and a whole colony of stray cats. The kittens are her playmates, and the cats are her family. She doesn't know she's a dog. She's never known anything else. Then men with flashlights crawl under the house.

Animal control. They grab the cats one by one and stuff them into cages. Her brother is caught. then her sister. They drag her mother out with a pole around her neck. The puppy hides in the dark and watches her family disappear. She never sees her mother again. I never saw her again.

Only one cat comes back for her. A gray mother cat with kittens of her own. She curls around the shaking puppy and feeds her along with the kittens. Day by day, the mother cat becomes her mother. A few weeks later, a young man named Lucas Ray sneaks onto the lot with his friend Olivia.

Lucas feeds the stray cats every day. A builder wants to tear the whole place down. And Lucas is trying to stop him. As he peaks under the house, a little puppy runs straight into his arms. Olivia tells him he can't keep a dog. Lucas doesn't care. The puppy ran right to him. And to him, that's a sign.

He takes her home to his mother, Terry, a veteran who's been struggling since she came back from the war. Their lease says no pets. Lucas names the puppy Bella anyway, and Terry gives in. Bella grows up fast. She learns to fetch, choose every shoe in the house and falls asleep on Lucas's old blue blanket because it smells like him.

Every night, Lucas gives her a tiny piece of cheese before bed. To Bella, that little treat means one thing: love. A tiny piece of cheese. When Lucas goes to feed the cats, Bella goes with him. She runs under the old house to see her mother cat, and the two of them rub noses like nothing has changed.

Bella has two families now, the cats and Lucas. At the end of each day, Lucas tucks her in on the blanket. Lucas is her person, and she's his dog. One day, Terry takes Bella for a walk, and a bald man in a leather jacket stops them. It's Gunter Beckenbower, the builder who owns the old houses.

He's furious that Lucas keeps calling the city about the cats because it's costing him a whole summer of work. Terry tells him to his face that he's lying about the cats being gone. Then he looks down at Bella. Pitbull. He warns Terry that she doesn't want to go to war with him. Terry doesn't back down.

What kind of dog is that, Pitbull? That winter, Bella sees snow for the first time. She thinks ice cream is falling from the sky and runs around the yard trying to catch it in her mouth. Then a notice arrives on the door. The landlord is coming to check the apartment, and if he finds a dog, Lucas and Terry lose their home.

Ice cream is falling from the sky. So Lucas sneaks Bella into his job at the VA hospital and hides her in a supply closet. Bella doesn't like being alone, so she barks until he comes back. Then a veteran named Mac has an idea. He takes Bella into the group therapy room. The veterans love her from the first second.

A soldier in a wheelchair reaches down and Bella licks his hand. Bella goes from one person to the next, laying her head on their knees. Men who never smile start laughing. Mac tells the group his pain never stops, and Bella sits right next to him. Soon, Bella is visiting the hospital every day, and the patients wait for her at the door.

The game is crowd in a small room. She rides on a veteran's lap as he rolls his wheelchair down the hall. Another patient lets her lick his pudding spoons. She helps the nurses with the laundry by climbing into the basket. Even Terry starts coming along. For the first time in years, Lucas sees his mother laugh.

Look who's here. Then one morning, Lucas finds a bulldozer at the old house. Gunter has a permit to tear it down. Lucas stands in front of the machine and films him live on his phone. Olivia calls the rescue group she works with and within minutes, Gunter's permit is cancelled. That same night, an animal control officer named Chuck knocks on their door.

Someone made a complaint. Pit bulls are illegal in Denver, and if Bella is ever caught on the street, she'll be taken. Lucas knows exactly who sent him. So, he teaches Bella a new game called Go Home. Whenever he says it, Bella has to run straight back to the house and touch the door with her head.

Best game ever. Then, Bella sees that squirrel again. She jumps right through the window screen and chases it down the street. Lucas finds her, but Chuck is already waiting with a backup officer. Lucas begs Bella to go home, but she won't leave him. Chuck slips a catch pole around her neck.

Lucas grabs her and refuses to let go until they promise to let him carry her himself. They lock Bella in a cage at the city shelter. All around her, dogs are howling. Bella sits, lies down, stays quiet, does everything a good dog does. When that doesn't work, she barks as loud as she can.

Nothing helps. She thinks if she's good enough, they'll let her go home. And she has no idea why they won't. Lucas holds the cage door through the bars. I will not let them hurt you. Then the officers pull him away. Lucas pays the fine and gets her back, but the shelter worker gives him terrible news.

Bella has been officially labeled a pit bull. If she's caught one more time, she'll be put down. The only way to save her is to move out of the city until they find a new place. Olivia's aunt and uncle can take Bella. They live in New Mexico, 400 m away. That's basically racism for dogs.

On the night Bella leaves, Chuck parks outside their house, waiting for a mistake. Terry walks right up to his truck in the dark. She asks him if he works for Gunter, or if they're just buddies. Then she tells him her son is going to say goodbye to his dog in peace. And Chuck doesn't move.

Lucas kneels in the car and puts the blue blanket next to Bella. He tells her. The car drives through the night and Bella presses her nose against the window as Lucas's smell fades away. Olivia's aunt and uncle are kind to Bella. They feed her and play with her. But every night, she lies on her blanket and stares at the door.

This isn't home. This wasn't home. One evening, Olivia's aunt gets a call. Lucas has found a new house outside the city, and they're coming to get Bella tomorrow. Then she smiles and tells Bella the words she knows best. Bella takes it literally. Go home is the one game she knows by heart.

The next morning, when the gate is left open, she slips out and starts running. Trucks roar past her on the empty desert road. She stops, lifts her nose, and turns slowly until she feels it again. North. Then she runs. Go home. She has no map and no idea where Denver is, but she can feel it like an invisible leash pulling her north.

Lucas is 400 miles away. She follows the pull across highways, rivers, and mountains. On her first night alone, a pair of glowing eyes watches her from the trees. That first night, she curls up under a log, cold and scared, surrounded by strange smells. In the morning, there's no bowl of food waiting.

She chases a rabbit through the leaves for what feels like hours. The rabbit wins. Bella gets hungrier than she's ever been. Then she finds a small town and a pack of local dogs. A scruffy little dog with one tooth shows her where people throw out chicken. For one day, Bella has a pack again.

But at night, each dog goes home to its own family. Bella keeps walking. Oh, crazy hair is in charge. Deep in the mountains, Bella smells blood. Two hunters are taking selfies next to a dead mountain lion, joking about how much money it's worth. In the bushes, Bella spots something hiding.

A tiny cougar cub now all alone. When the hunters leave, the cub follows Bella. A really big kitten. At first, Bella tries to lose her. The cub doesn't smell like any cat she's ever known, and she's bigger than Bella's head. But every time Bella looks back, the cub is there, creeping along behind her.

When Bella stops at the river to drink, the cub stops, too. She has nobody else. Bella remembers how she lost her own mother and how a mother cat saved her, so she takes care of the cub. She calls her big kitten. Bella steals sausages from campers and brings them back to her. And when she can't find food, she goes hungry so the cub can eat.

Week after week, Big Kitten grows bigger and stronger. Big Kitten keeps trying to lead Bella deeper into the mountains, away from the road. Every time, Bella turns around and brings her back on course. At night, they sleep curled up together in the cold, their family now. At night, Bella dreams of Lucas and the tiny piece of cheese.

Back in Denver, Lucas is searching for her everywhere. He puts up posters and calls every shelter between New Mexico and Colorado. Nobody has seen her. One morning, Bella smells danger. A pack of coyotes surrounds them with cold eyes and bare teeth. Bella stands in front of Big Kitten and growls, showing her teeth for the first time in her life.

The coyotes spread out and start closing in from every side. There are too many of them. Suddenly, a group of campers runs out of the trees, yelling and throwing rocks. The coyotes run off. The men share their food with Bella and read the tag on her collar. Lucas Ray with a phone number. they call him and Bella hears his voice on the answering machine.

Then Big Kitten steps into the fire light and the three grown men scramble away screaming. By the first snow, the cub is nearly as big as Bella. Bella and Big Kitten slide across frozen lakes and keep each other warm at night. But Big Kitten is getting wilder. More and more she wanders off on her own.

One day, Bella meets a dog named Dutch, barking at the edge of a snowy cliff. Then the mountain gives way. An avalanche buries Dutch's owner under the snow. Bella digs with her paws until a hand appears. She barks until two skiers hear her. They pull the man out alive. He's going to make it because of Bella.

Yeah, he saved us. Nobody knows where the man lives, so the skiers take Bella and Dutch to their warm home for the winter. They don't know Bella's name, so they guess Molly, Sadie, Chloe. Then, by luck, they guess right. She gets a spot by the fireplace and Dutch flops down right on top of her.

There's dinner in a real bowl. Nobody is hunting her. She sleeps all night. When the snow melts, they take the dogs to the man from the avalanche. He's angry and lying in bed with broken bones. He doesn't want Dutch, and he's never even seen Bella before. Dutch jumps on him, wagging his tail, and the man pushes him away.

So, Dutch gets a new family with the people who loved him. On the drive back, Bella smells the wind. Big kitten is out there somewhere, and so is Lucas. When the car stops, she squeezes out and bolts for the trees. Dutch found his home. Now, Bella has to find hers. Dutch had found his Lucas.

For days, she follows the pull past lakes so still they look like glass. Her paws crack and bleed. She misses big kitten. She misses Dutch. And every night the pull toward Lucas gets a little stronger. Bella reaches a mountain town. The smell of chicken drags her into a grocery store and she comes running out with a whole roast bird in her mouth and two clerks behind her.

Behind the store, a homeless old man named Axel shares his water with her. He reads her tag. Bella food on the floor is always for the dog. Axel is a veteran like the men at the hospital. He's sad the way Mac was sad and the way Terry was sad. He keeps Bella warm under his coat through the winter, and he always makes sure she eats, even when he doesn't.

"It's you and me, Bella," he says. But he ties her to a rope and then to a chain. He's afraid she'll leave him. His name was Axel. Spring rains turn the river gray. Axel barely talks anymore. Bella pulls at her chain every time she smells the wind from the north, but she won't leave a sad man alone.

One cold night, Axel lies down by the river and tells Bella she's his only friend. Bella lies against him to keep him warm. By morning, Axel is gone, and Bella is still chained to him. For days, she waits for someone to come. Nobody does. She's so thirsty she can barely stand. Then two kids on bicycles find her.

One of them carefully unclips the chain. Bella stumbles to the river and drinks. She's been gone for two winters now, and home is still far away. Being a good dog didn't work. Then the coyotes find her again, and this time she's alone. They circle her among the rocks. Bella fights back with everything she has left, but she's weak and starving, and one of them bites her leg.

Just when they close in, a fullgrown mountain lion leaps from the rocks and scatters them. She's a big big kitten now. It's big kitten. She's huge now. The two of them press their heads together like old times. For a while, they travel together again. They climb through river canyons and sleep under the full moon.

Bella dreams of a bed big enough for Lucas, Big Kitten, and her. Lucas is going to need a much bigger bed. Lucas was definitely going to need a bigger bed. They cross wide golden plains full of buffalo. Then on the horizon, Bella sees the city, Denver. Big kitten stops. She won't go any further because the city isn't her home.

Bella understands. The two of them say goodbye and Bella walks toward the city alone. To get there, she has to cross a highway. Cars rush past from every side. Bella runs and a car hits her. She lies on the road hurting badly. Then she gets up and limps on. It hurts so much. Slowly, the streets start to look familiar.

She finds the house and runs inside. But strangers live there now. Lucas and Terry are gone. Bella lies down on the floor, too tired to take another step. Then a gray cat walks up to her. It's her mother cat still alive after all this time. She's smaller than Bella remembers. Or maybe Bella just grew.

The old cat lies down beside her for a while. When Bella finally gets up to leave, the cat just watches her go. That's how cats say goodbye. Hi. There's only one more place Lucas could be. Bella limps all the way to the VA hospital and slips through the front doors. In the hall, a veteran stops and stares at the skinny, injured dog.

Bella. The patients crowd around her. Lucas is outside in the parking lot when he hears the shouting. He turns around and sees a skinny, limping dog running across the grass toward him. He runs across the lawn and Bella runs to him and he drops to his knees and holds her. After 2 and 1/2 years and 400 m, Bella is home.

A Dog's Way Home (2019) Ending Explained

Terry and Olivia come running too. But Chuck is still out there. As Lucas carries Bella to the car to see a vet, police cars pull in. Chuck has brought a whole team of officers to take Bella away. If anyone gets in the way, they'll be arrested. Then the police captain, Captain Micah, arrives to see what's going on.

Micah agrees that the law says the dog has to be taken. Then the veterans step forward one by one and stand between the police and Bella, naming the units they served in. Terry points out one more thing. The VA hospital is federal property. It's not part of Denver and Denver's dog law doesn't apply here.

This is federal property. Captain Micah looks at the veterans, then at Terry, and smiles. He has no power here, and he doesn't look sorry about it. He even asks where the two of them serve. Then he turns to Chuck and tells him he gets more complaints than everyone else combined. Chuck is pulled out of the field for good.

Nobody will be stopping anyone over a dog again. Lucas, Terry, and Bella move into a new house in Golden outside the city where Bella is allowed to live. Lucas finds the old blue blanket and lays it out for her. Then he holds up a tiny piece of cheese. After everything she's been through, Lucas isn't sure she'll remember.

Bella takes it gently from his fingers and lays her head on his knee. Far away in the mountains, Big Kitten watches over the city lights with a cub of her own. Bella was taken from her family twice, and she walked 400 miles through snow, coyotes, and hunger to get back to the boy who saved her. Along the way, she saved a cougar cub, a buried man, and a lonely old soldier.

The leash that pulled her home was never on her neck. It was love.