Yeah, we know the entertainment world is focused on the Oscars right now. But we want to know who won this year’s Dog Oscars.
Here at Dog O’Day, we like dogs. We also like movies (thus our movie reviews, and a good bit of our staff’s non-canine writing). The Oscars are perhaps the most important film awards of the year, and some well-deserved casts and crews will be rewarded.
But what about all the good boys and girls who filled the screens with lovable canine content in 2018?
That’s where the Dog Oscars come in.
They don’t actually exist, but the staff of the snarky sports/pop culture website The Ringer– which is essentially a reboot of the wonderful-and-now-defunct ESPN website Grantland – invented the 2019 Dog Oscars and handed them out last week.
The Award for Best Dog Ensemble went to the various doggos of Leave No Trace, which is a survivalist drama about a man and his daughter. Among these dogs are a trucker’s assistant named after country singer Willie Nelson and Boris the Collie, an emotional support service dog.
This seems like it should have gone to the animated Isle of Dogs, given the award’s title, but that’s just our opinion.
Dog Most Excited to See His Movie Family went to Borras from Roma, a black and white film from Netflix set in 1970s Mexico City. Borras’ main job is to be a guard dog and greeter, both of which he pursues with zeal and enthusiasm.
This is a solid pick.
Best Behavior by a Dog in a Movie went to Charlie, the real-life dog of actor Bradley Cooper (his Guardians of the Galaxy co-star Dave Bautista is also a dog lover). Charlie played the dog of Cooper’s character Jackson Maine in A Star is Born, and his devotion to his owner is plain to see.
We’re curious: Cooper’s character Jackson is a country musician like Luke Bryan and Scotty McCreery – did he write any songs about his pup?
Anyway, back to the awards…
Most Barks by a Dog in a Movie easily goes to a Jack Russell Terrier named President Pierce in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. His vocalizations while journeying along the Oregon Trail with his owners eventually cause fellow travelers to think of the Billy Collins poem “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” – or it would have, except that it was around a hundred years later that the poem was written.
Good job, Decoy.
Poor Olivia the Westie. Her character Bastian in the Kyle Chandler-Rachel McAdams-Jesse Plemons film Game Night gets her beautiful white fur SOAKED with blood after a human accidentally stabs himself, easily walking away with Most Blood Absorbed by a Dog in a Movie.
(We think this category is gross and shouldn’t be given out again.)
Most Poop by a Dog in a Movie is also a gross category, but…hey, everybody poops, right? It’s been a mainstay of dog-movie humor for decades, but rarely becomes a minor element of the plot, as it does for Borras in Roma. His family spends a lot of time complaining about cleaning up the hallway.
Disgusting, but it’s a good pick.
Best Dog-Related Bit goes to Venom, the superhero sequel-introduction that no one particularly wanted to see but which made a ton of money anyway. A small dog becomes the middleman in a bizarre transfer of the symbiote from Michelle Williams to Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock.
We forgot Venom existed, so we can’t really comment here.
Best Performance by a Dog in a Drama went to Olivia for her work in the Viola Davis movie Widows, which we also highly approved of. She turned her role in that film into her role in Game Night, which she also got a Dog Oscar for. She must have quite the trophy case in her doghouse.
Best Performance by a Dog in a Comedy or Musical went to Charlie for A Star Is Born, but ultimately went with Olivia for Game Night. and she took home Best Dog for her wide array of roles in the past year.
Finally, the Lassie B DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Buddy the Golden Retriever, who played the Tanners’ dog Comet on the ABC sitcom Full House and originated the role of Buddy from the Air Bud series.
In real life, he could play basketball, football, soccer and hockey. (See our reviews for World Pup, Seventh Inning Fetch and Spikes Back, along with the first Air Buddies spinoff.)
Buddy was given this lifetime achievement award because the Dog Oscars had not been created yet in his lifetime (and the real-life PATSY Awards had been discontinued), and his role inspired millions of athletic doggos that they, too could play human sports. (Just ask Phoenix the receiver from World’s Most Amazing Dog).
This is an amazing choice, and we can’t wag fast enough in approval.
A pause in the proceedings took place in remembrance for 12-year-old Towne the Cat, because he was “more of a dog than a cat,” according to his handler. Towne starred in Can You Ever Forgive Me? with Melissa McCarthy, and his brother has The Marvelous Mrs Maisel and John Wick 3 on his resume.
Who do you think should have won these awards? What categories did they miss that should have been included? Let us know on the Dog O’Day Facebook and Twitter pages.