Acting
Travis is a divorced architect and devoted father of two who has a hard time handling his unruly dog, Lucky, especially when he goes on dates, which Lucky has a habit of sabotaging. Travis starts falling for a fellow architect, Amber, whose dog Cassie provides a convenient love interest for Lucky. Through Travis and Amber have a mutual attraction, they find themselves at odds when their architectural firm is hired by the wealthy Preston Spencer to design a destination retreat on Catalina Island, and Spencer wants all the architects to compete for the design he'll choose. Unfortunately for Travis, the bigger problem is that Spencer has set his sights on Amber and she seems to be falling for him in return ...
Poor but happy, young Nello and his grandfather live alone, delivering milk as a livelihood, in the outskirts of Antwerp, a city in Flanders (the Flemish or Dutch-speaking part of modern-day Belgium). They discover a beaten dog (a Bouvier, a large sturdy dog native to Flanders) and adopt it and nurse it back to health, naming it Patrasche, the middle name of Nello's mother Mary, who died when Nello was very young. Nello's mother was a talented artist, and like his mother, he delights in drawing, and his friend Aloise is his model and greatest fan and supporter.
Steve Moore is sixteen and lives with his younger sister, mother Cheryl and her boyfriend John, in a modest house in Bakersfield, California. An abusive and often intoxicated man, John rules the household, and though his attacks on Steve result in emergency hospital visits, Cheryl's loyalty is to her boyfriend. To protect her relationship with John, she "ditches" her son, having him arrested and locked in a correctional "mental" facility, before coercing her older brother Burt, who lives in Hollywood, to take him. Steve quickly discovers that Burt cannot even provide temporary lodging, but an administrator at his new high school directs him to a shelter for runaway kids where he soon learns to navigate his way.
Nick isn't lucky in love - until a trip to the Dog Park with his ex-girlfriend's dog changes everything.
