Hachiko: Nice Dog, Sad Story

I don't care for animal movies.

I know that sounds harsh, but I have to set the scene for the story I'm about to tell you.

I've always felt that the way they portray villains in animal movies was over the top silliness. Seriously, a couple of grown men getting fooled by a dalmatian puppy? or how about when they make animals do human things? A dog and a cat make their way across the United States using only a parachute and a debit card? No thank you.

Last night I remembered another reason why i don't like animal movies.

THEY ARE SAD!!!

Ashlynn had read the story of Hachi, the train dog, at school so we thought it would be fun to let her watch the movie. We put in the movie then left Ash and Briggs alone to watch it while we went upstairs to talk about how grateful we are that life is so challenging right now and how we are so glad that we have so many trials in order to make us better people (this would be a good time to hold up my sarcasm sign...)(PS. Ty was at Farmers Market, so this was acceptable.)

An hour later, we came back downstairs only to find BOTH Ashlynn and Briggs in tears!
How could I have forgotten that the movie was about a man who dies, then his dog waits for him for ten years, then he dies! Not exactly a message the kids can feel all warm and fuzzy from.

I was instantly reminded of letting Ashlynn watch Heidi when she was four or five, only to have her burst into tears because Heidi was forced to leave Grandpa and the mountain.

Moral of the story: I don't like animal movies and neither do my kids. I shall now remove all of them from my Netflix queue