Credit: Diyah Pera / Netflix

A Dog’s Perfect Christmas on Netflix sets the festive mood early, and viewers have nothing to complain about.

Based on A Dog’s Purpose’s author W Bruce Cameron’s bestselling 2020 novel, the book-to-screen adaptation, directed by Cathryn Michon, follows a family whose dreams of a perfect Christmas are upended by personal setbacks and a terrifying medical emergency.

Narrated by the family’s basset hound, Winstead, the movie picks up several Christmases earlier, when Hunter and his wife, Juliana, gave Winstead as a Christmas present to Hunter’s parents, Sander and Barbara. Since arriving in the family, they’ve spent several happy holidays and welcomed Hunter and Juliana’s daughter, Ello and their twins. But that delightful festive mood didn’t last forever.

Two Christmases ago, Sander lost Barbara to cancer, and nothing has ever been the same. Sander has grown increasingly grumpy towards everyone around him, especially Ello, now a teenager. While she is overwhelmed with her own academic pressures and school bullies, Hunter and Juliana’s marriage is crumbling as the former prioritises work amidst a professional struggle. To make everything worse, Juliana suddenly falls ill on Thanksgiving. But can she return home to celebrate Christmas with her family?

Does Juliana return home to celebrate Christmas in A Dog’s Perfect Christmas?

At the heart of Netflix’s new holiday flick, A Dog’s Perfect Christmas, is a family where everything seems to go wrong ahead of Christmas. But thankfully, Sander and Ello choose to set aside their differences and call a truce. While Thanksgiving doesn’t really go as planned, Winstead is still happy with all the hogging and Sander and Ello working on their relationship. But then Sander spots a tiny abandoned corgi puppy outside his go-to coffee place, which runs away before he can approach.

Ello, however, spots the same puppy while returning home. She carries her back home and names her Ruby. Although Ello falls in love with Ruby at first sniff, Hunter is totally against keeping her, given everything that’s going down in their lives. With Juliana sick and his job hanging in the balance, Hunter isn’t ready for yet another responsibility. So, he suggests Ruby go to a shelter, but Ello is adamant.

Although Ruby comes home when the family seems least welcoming, her arrival turns everything around slowly and steadily. While Ello finds a friend in Hunter’s boss’s son, Sean, Sander spends more time with Ello and the twins and opens his heart to potential dates. But Juliana’s health takes a worse turn, with the kidney infection spreading to all vital organs, prompting doctors to place her in a medically induced coma.

With everything falling apart, Hunter insists Ello send Ruby away. However, Sander steps in and tells Ello she has little to worry about. While we won’t spoil everything that unfolds between them, the family finally receives the call they have been waiting for. Juliana wakes up and is going to survive. Although her recovery won’t be immediate, she will get better each passing day.

While Juliana is not steady enough to leave the hospital for Christmas Eve, the family decides to bring Christmas to her. The entire family arrives at the hospital to celebrate Christmas with Juliana, even Winstead and Ruby, thanks to Sanders. Meanwhile, the nurses let them use an already decorated room left over from a gala the previous night. Safe to say, they celebrated a Christmas unlike any other!