I just finished watching the last ½ hour of My Dog Skip and I’m a total wreck. It’s the story about a shy boy, an only child who is bullied by the other boys and stinks at sports. Willie grows up in 1940s Yazoo, Mississippi. With the help of his beloved dog Skip, Willie builds a friendship with the prettiest girl in school Rivers Applewhite, his father lets him join Little League, and he makes friends with the bullies. Skip is quite the character too; everyone in town knows him and loves him. Every morning he runs down to the local butcher shop for a slice of bologna.

Why do I do it to myself? This movie sleighs me every time but it’s got so much heart that I can’t look away. Plus, the lead dog actor is played by “Moose” whose other film credits include Eddie in Frazier. Moose is one of Pugsley’s favorite 4-legged actors.

Now, I’m fumbling room to room grabbing for tissues and holding onto Pugsley as tight as I can. I knew it would kill me when Willie is playing baseball and Skip runs out onto the field to try to help. Willie yells at him to go home and then in a rage he hits Skip. Skip runs away and gets trapped in a cemetery tomb by the evil moonshine bootleggers. Willie and Dink rescue Skip just in time, then the small town rallies around at the vet’s office waiting for word if Skip will live or die. Willies Mother asks, "Do you want me to go in with you?" His father, played stoically by Kevin Bacon says, "No, this is something he’s got to do on his own". The vet scene is where I start to lose it. There Skip is, lying stretched out on the hospital gurney, half covered with a blanket. Willie comes in and starts balling, telling Skip all the reasons why he can’t die. I’m blubbering now. After some time and Willie keeping vigil at his bedside, Skip gently lifts his head up off the table and starts licking Willie's face. Then my tears of sadness become tears of joy. But not for long…..

Willie grows up and goes off to college. In his last scene as a boy with Skip, an adult Willie is now narrating with voice overlay, “Why in childhood and youth do we wish time to pass so quickly - we want to grow up so fast - yet as adults we wish just the opposite?” Willie gets on the train leaving Skip behind.

Willie as an old man is now narrating. “Skip was 11 and feeble with arthritis” (I start thinking about Pugsley, he is 11 and is becoming arthritic). Skip lives out his remaining days in Willie’s room, hanging out on his bed that he can’t climb up onto anymore, Willies father has to lift him up. With very sad close ups of a forlorn, pining Skip, narrator Willie tells of how he received a transatlantic telegram from his mother saying Skip died. She wrapped him in his old baseball jacket and buried him under the Elm tree in the front yard. “But that wasn’t true”, Older Willie says, “For Skip was really buried in my heart. Forever.” OMG. Where’s the Kleenex.