What are the odds that on the same Sunday night in November, two networks would premiere movies with the words "dog" and "Christmas" in the titles?
Well, every dog has its day, and this Sunday's the day.
The first -- and by far the better -- production is Hallmark Hall of Fame's "A Dog Named Christmas" (9 p.m. EST, CBS). In fact, it's as good a holiday special as you're likely to see this season.
Filmed with Vancouver and Saskatchewan filling in for Kansas, the movie focuses on the McCrays, a loving farm family with a developmentally challenged 20-year-old son, Todd.
When Todd (the touching Noel Fisher) hears about the local animal shelter's "adopt a dog for Christmas" program, he wants a dog, even though his father (Bruce Greenwood) opposes the idea.
But the father gives in, making Todd promise that the dog will go back to the shelter on Dec. 26. A beautiful, affectionate yellow Lab -- whom Todd names "Christmas" -- comes into their home for the holidays.
We learn that the father has had two traumatic experiences with dogs that have died, one in his childhood and one when he served in Vietnam, and that he fears for both himself and his son getting emotionally attached to an animal. Linda Emond plays his wife, who resists her husband's efforts to return the dog to the shelter. The acting is first-rate.
The script ventures into unusual psychological places, and the dog named Christmas proves he's worth cherishing. Most viewers will probably love dog and movie alike.
Imagine the movie "Home Alone" with a dog named Zeus in the Macaulay Culkin role.
You'd have "The Dog Who Saved Christmas" (8 p.m.), a modestly watchable entertainment on the ABC Family channel.
The Bannister family, who lives in a Victorian home with lots of Christmas bric-a-brac, needs a watchdog after some burglaries in the neighborhood. So it misguidedly adopts Zeus, a retired K-9 dog who can't bark.
The dog does talk to the audience in the voice of Mario Lopez, but much less amusingly than one might hope.
Zeus happily laps water from the toilet and proceeds to wreak havoc with the decorations, but the gentle pooch is a miserable watchdog.
Then, bumbling burglars (Dean Cain and Joey Diaz) break into the Bannister home while they are visiting Grandma on Christmas Eve. The intruders are no match for the resourceful Zeus, who proves his mettle and, you might say, "saves Christmas."
The family -- Dad (Gary Valentine), Mom (Eliza Donovan) and kids (Sierra McCormick and Charlie Stewart) -- seems mismatched, and the kids are many years too old to believe in Santa, as they profess. Then we realize that the burglars believe in Santa, too, and that we should stop asking so many questions.
Adrienne Barbeau has the best role -- the neighborhood "Cat Lady" who recognizes that the dog's inability to bark has been caused by a trauma -- and Mindy Sterling (Frau Farbissina in the "Austin Powers" movies) livens the movie a bit as the Bannisters' daffy grandmother.
Both movies make the case for adopting pets at your local animal shelter. If you're interested, a wonderful place to start is petfinder.com.
(Jim Heinrich can be reached at jheinrich(at)post-gazette.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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