One-Eyed Pup Gets a Happy Ending in Adorable Animated Film

Minnesota Pet Rescue Centre, Secondhand Hounds (SHH), has launched ‘True Rescue Stories’, an online and social campaign aimed at building brand awareness and to highlight the happy endings achieved when re-homing rescue dogs in secure, loving homes.

In the first episode of ‘True Rescue Stories’, we meet one-eyed rescue dog ‘Lenny’ whose story is one of a true adoption. In this narrated animated film, a couple foster a rescue dog, who arrives for his short, temporary stay in urgent need of feeding and bathing. After tending to his needs, they wait for Lenny’s prospective new adoptive family to arrive, and come up with multiple reasons why they should permanently adopt their adorable canine friend themselves.

The arrival of the visitors reveals a little boy who immediately bonds with Lenny. It’s a perfect match, and a happy ending for the rescue dog.

Created by production company Mad Ruffian and post production company, Ruffian Post, the CG animated film is intended to feel homemade and hand-crafted. To achieve this, the characters were designed and modelled to look like antique dolls while Lenny is textured like a rugged stuffed toy. The textures of the environments are all something that could be found in a craft box - from paper grass to wooden tongue depressor fences.  Although not true stop frame animation, but made to look it, the film uses motion capture to animate all the human characters which allowed Mad Ruffian to try out lots of different performance ideas quickly in real-time.

Sally Mars, who commissioned the film for SHH said: “I am overwhelmed by how charming it is.  It’s unique, original, exceptional. I can never thank Mad Ruffian enough!”

Secondhand Hounds is a not for profit animal rescue in Minnesota. Their volunteers have placed over 16,000 dogs and cats since their conception, making a positive impact on the lives of many dogs and cats in the community. The organisation provides safe shelter, veterinary care and daily necessities for animals at risk, while working hard to find each one a permanent, loving home.

Speaking on her debut as solo director for Mad Ruffian, Amanda Jones said: "I truly loved working on this film. It’s always a rare opportunity to really get to tell a story in a commercial context, and for me, nothing is worth making if it has no heart so, at every point, that was my goal. Where we usually do a lot of VFX work and try new technologies (which, of course we couldn’t help but do a little on this), I wanted to go back to the basics with this - hence the style - sort of a homemade/DIY/stop frame feel. It was both rewarding and a challenge and it felt great to let our hair down!"

The film launched at Give to the Max Day - an annual Secondhand Hounds fundraiser on 15th of November, followed by an online debut.