by Mark Murton
Also Known As: The Dog Days of Christmas; Sit. Stay. Love.
Directed by: Tori Garrett
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: In this Australian TV movie, aid worker Annie Blake (Georgia Flood) arrives in her hometown of North Haven to spend Christmas with her aunt and other relations. When her aunt shows her a flyer from the local animal shelter looking for foster care for three dogs over Christmas Annie determines to use her talents to find homes for all the shelter’s animals and in the process finds herself falling in love, too.
Kitty Cameo: Arriving at the animal shelter, Annie finds it has had to close down and all the animals have been taken in by the local veterinary clinic, so she hurries there and as she enters the building a tuxedo cat named George can be seen on a high perch looking down at a dog.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): The local vet turns out to be Dylan (Ezekiel Simat), Annie’s former high-school classmate with whom she regularly locked horns. As they talk, a Sphynx cat enters the foreground of the shot.
Dylan picks up the Sphynx and introduces him as Bigglesworth (a little nod to Austin Powers, we presume?) When Annie questions why the cat has no fur Dylan replies defensively “He has issues.” (We assume this was a joke and as a qualified vet would know the Sphynx is a hairless cat!)
Kitty Cameos: Later in the film, Annie finds Dylan in the park handing out flyers he has made asking people to adopt an animal for Christmas. Annie studies one flyer for a white cat named Snowball.
Annie hatches a plan to save the animal shelter by organising a special Christmas event to be called ‘Santa Paws’ and gets her family and friends to start setting up stalls for the event. She joins Dylan at the clinic, introduced by a series of shots of various cats in their cages.
Annie finds Dylan making animal-shaped ornaments for the Christmas trees at the shelter complete with pictures of the animals they hope to get adopted. Annie joins in, including sticking a glittery-eyed picture of Bigglesworth to one of the cat-shaped hangers.
On the day of ‘Santa Paws’ the town is suddenly hit by a power outage, threatening the event and more urgently the welfare of the animals at the clinic who need to be kept warm so Annie hurries over and helps by putting blankets on the cats, paying particular attention to Bigglesworth.
With hard work and the loan of some generators, ‘Santa Paws’ is saved and preparations pick up pace.
‘Santa Paws’ begins and the donations start to roll in.
Later in the evening Dylan spots Annie looking stunning in a red dress. Even Snowball in the cage behind him seems to have had his head turned!
‘Santa Paws’ is a great success, the shelter is saved and most of the animals are adopted. The next morning, Annie’s aunt Claire (Christine Amor) prepares breakfast with a tuxedo cat on the table in front of her. Entering the kitchen, Annie asks “Why is George walking across the kitchen table?” Claire holds up George’s adoption hanger and declares that she has adopted him.
Back at the shelter, Stacy (Ling Cooper Tang) arrives expecting to adopt one of the three dogs Annie has been fostering only to find Annie has decided to keep all three of the dogs herself! She then convinces Stacy, who was concerned about getting dog hair on her clothes and furniture, that a better option would be to adopt the hairless Bigglesworth. Stacy lifts Bigglesworth from his cage and is immediately smitten.
We can’t help but feel sorry for the little semi-muted calico still sitting in the cage behind them as Annie convinces Stacy to take Bigglesworth.
The Animal Coordinator / Trainer for the film was Katie Brock with Animal Owners / Trainers Bente Dubnitski, Lynda Du Valle, Gina Johnson and Sheryl White.
Final Mewsings: It would have been a Merrier Christmas if all the kitties had been shown being adopted!
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