Jack Vasen I have tagged this spoilers although I haven't given much away that wasn't either early in the movie, or pretty obvious.A beautiful sweet almost teen girl and a dog, how can you go wrong? And it was nice. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a story setup like this.I was a little distracted by the ambiguity of what was the right thing to do in the early part of the movie. Many critics have gone overboard in their criticism. Yes Mark and Emma struggled. Who doesn't sometimes struggle with doing the right thing? Instead of my first knee-jerk reaction which was to be appalled, as the story developed I realized this was a very realistic struggle. The one valid criticism is how quickly the shelters passed the dog along to the point of adoption. That is irresponsible, but the explanation was that they were all over-crowded. A little lame maybe.But there were no bad guys in this movie. Sally was very gracious even in her struggle that they might not give Buddy back. Emma was an unselfish and kind young lady when she realized what she had to do. I say pretty good for her age. And Dad was patient, avoiding any rash irreversible decision. The acting was very good. I have seen Teri Polo only once before but I am starting to really respect her acting, especially in these heartwarming stories. She is especially good with little girls. She has a great nurturing spirit. Both she and Jordyn Ashley Olson had to deal with their characters' difficult emotions and the emotional struggle of potential loss heaped on top of a history of a lost loved one. Olson managed to show how attached she was, yet made her choice real. Olson was also great in the rest of the story. Martin Cummins was also great as his character dealt with the moral dilemma vs protecting his daughter. Ace, the dog actor, was superbly trained. He managed some complicated maneuvers.This is quite simply a wonderful and touching Christmas movie that doesn't have a ton of Christmas clichés piled up. It is compelling and real.

glenntharrington Well-written, well-acted. This is a Christmas movie, and Hallmark on top of that, so it's not going to be "Citizen Kane" or "I Was a Teenage Werewolf." Hallmark consistently produces excellent stories that are character-driven.With that said, I found the storyline very poignant and believable. Most everything has been tried before in Christmas movies, and this was a well-written drama without happy smiling faces all around. Without going into details (spoiler alert) people dealing with loss and coming together over a dog. At Christmas.I'm from Massachusetts so the locations mentioned are spot-on. One year we had only a light dusting of snow until long after Christmas, so I didn't find the "no snow" scenery at all unusual.

gbarrett10 As a dog owner, I really disliked the premise of this movie. In short, a woman's dog runs away in a storm, and the man who find the dog decides to adopt him as a way to comfort his daughter who is still dealing with the loss of her mother from 2 years ago. After the owner of the dog finally tracks down her dog after about 14 days, the new owners give her grief and decide that they aren't going to give the dog back, and somehow "love" evolves out of this. I truly dislike the selfish father and daughter who feel as though their 2 weeks with a dog trumps the 5 years that this woman had with her dog who clearly misses her. Eventually the girl stops being so selfish, but I truly disliked the entitled attitude that consumed the first half of this movie.

roger-bost This stunk. First, a soldier brings a dog back from deployment, later veteran soldier dies prematurely from a heart attack after returning stateside; his widow loses the dog in a storm, a guy picks up dog in his truck and carries it an hour away. Dog ends up in shelter, gal who runs shelter's brother gets dog and has it for a whole two weeks. Meanwhile, the widow is trying to track down her dog, finds shelter and gal who runs it gives her a rash of s..t but finally determines she's the dog's rightful owner. So when widow contacts guy who, again has had dog for a full 14 days as compared to five years for widow, thinks maybe . . . no. She travels there, hits the same garbage and that's where I turned this show off. I have no idea how it turned out but up to then, one of the worst Hallmark or Lifetime type deals I've ever watched. Sucked. Major. Sorry if I spoiled the plot line, but frankly I'm doing you guys a huge favor pre-warning you.