I watched a documentary called Pick of the Litter, about puppies in training to become guide dogs for the blind, and Iâd like the record to reflect that there should definitely be more movies about puppies.
Pick of the Litter isnât all roly-polies and snuggles and yips: The star dogs of the film work their tails off as they are trained to become service animals, and their journey is emotional, tense, inspiring. (And yes, cute as hell.) The film starts with a fresh litter of squeaky baby labrador woofers, called the âP litterâ because they all get P names: Poppet, Patriot, Potomac, Primrose, and the everyman, Phil. (âPhil would let you borrow his truck,â explains a highly-trained dog handler, who has just convinced you that Phil probably could actually own and operate a truck.) They are squirmy, bitey little monsters that I would die for, and they all have the potential to change the life of a vision-impaired person whoâs been on a waitlist for years.
We follow the five Ps through their highly regimented early lives that start at a breeding center, then move on to puppy raisers (DID YOU KNOW âPUPPY RAISERâ WAS A JOB TITLE THAT YOU COULD HAVE AND ARE YOU RETHINKING SOME OF YOUR LIFE CHOICES?), to an academy, and, finally, at close to two years old, into the hands of a person who needs them. And because the squishy geniuses change hands so many times on their path to work, the film contains many, many minutes of people saying very emotional goodbyes to dogs or hellos to dogs. If youâve ever done one of those things, youâre going to cry.
While Pick of the Litter is rich in puppy antics and super soothing dog vibes, it also captures a lot of tension. Not all of our five fuzzy best friends of the P litter will have what it takes; only 40 percent of the pups in the program make it. Some may be destined for breeding, and some may be âcareer changedâ (that's the nice way of saying âkicked out of the program for trying to eat paperâ), and it could be that the most squirrelly, chompy dogface that nobody suspects will succeed will, in fact, become a decorated service animal.
In conclusion, if youâve read this much about a movie about dogs, you obviously need to watch the actual movie about dogs. Dogs are the best. Dogs!