A Dog’s Perfect Christmas begins with a dog watching another dog being abandoned on the side of the road. That should tell you right away that this Christmas won’t be quite as carefree as the title suggests.
Directed and co-written by Cathryn Michon, the Netflix movie follows a family already struggling with grief when a medical emergency threatens to completely upend their Christmas. At the center of it all are Winstead, the family’s Basset Hound, and Ruby, a little Corgi puppy who arrives at exactly the moment this family needs her.
Here is our full A Dog’s Perfect Christmas recap and ending explained.
Winstead Tells Us How His Family Got Here
Winstead has been part of this family for years. Hunter and his wife Juliana originally give him to Hunter’s parents, Sander and Barbara, as a Christmas present. For Winstead, it is love at first sniff. Sander and Barbara become his mom and dad, while their granddaughter Ello becomes his girl.
Christmas is particularly important to the family. Everyone comes together, the house is full, and Winstead gets to watch his pack grow. By the following Christmas, Hunter and Juliana have welcomed twins. But those happy Christmases don’t last forever.
Years later, Ello is now a teenager, the twins are older, and Sander is living with Hunter and Juliana after losing Barbara to cancer two years earlier. Her illness also left him financially drained after he spent his money on her medical treatment.
On the day Barbara died, Winstead noticed a red cardinal outside the house. The bird has remained connected to her in his mind ever since.
Sander hasn’t recovered from losing his wife. He’s sad, grumpy, and increasingly disconnected from everyone around him. He isn’t the only member of the family having a difficult time.
Ello is struggling at school after falling out with her former friend, who now bullies her. The one place where Ello still feels herself completely is on the ice. She’s a talented skater and just won a $2,000 college grant, but she worries her classmates will use it against her.
Hunter is under enormous pressure at work. His new boss, Mrs. O’Brien, has put him in charge of reorganizing the office after he suggested replacing the traditional cubicles with an open floor plan that would encourage cooperation. Production is down, though, and the branch’s future may depend on whether his changes work. Success could mean a promotion. Failure could cost Hunter his job and potentially lead to the branch closing.
At home, things aren’t much better.
Juliana Tells Hunter Their Marriage Isn’t Working
Juliana gave up her career as a lawyer after the twins were born, and she feels like she’s drowning.
Hunter is constantly working, and a possible promotion would mean he’d be away even more. When he tells her she can go back to work if she wants, Juliana points out the obvious problem: who will take care of the twins? Who does the shopping, the housekeeping, and the laundry?
Simply telling her she can return to work doesn’t change everything else she is carrying. She finally tells Hunter that she isn’t happy in their marriage.
Thanksgiving arrives while that conversation is still hanging over them. For Juliana, Thanksgiving normally marks the beginning of Christmas. Christmas is her Super Bowl, so Thanksgiving is the kickoff.
This year, however, she doesn’t even make it through the day. Juliana becomes ill and has to go to the emergency room. After a night at the hospital, Hunter learns that she has a kidney infection. He initially keeps the seriousness of her condition from Ello and asks his daughter to help hold things together at home while he deals with work and the hospital.
That leaves Ello and Sander spending considerably more time together, and at first, it doesn’t go well.
Ello Finally Tells Sander What She Thinks of Him
Sander expects Ello to lose the attitude and treat him with more respect. Ello has had enough. From her perspective, Sander has moved into what was supposed to be her room and treats her like room service, all while staying miserable and rude to everyone around him. She also reminds him of something he seems to have forgotten.
Barbara wasn’t only his wife. Ello lost her grandmother. The argument sticks with Sander because he has spent the past two years consumed by his own grief without really considering that everyone else loved and lost Barbara too.
Eventually, grandfather and granddaughter call a truce. Sander agrees to take the twins grocery shopping while Ello gets the house ready for Thanksgiving. At the store, he runs into Claire, one of the women he previously met while walking Winstead.
Thanksgiving itself doesn’t exactly go according to plan.
Winstead gets hungry and pulls the tablecloth, sending most of their dinner onto the floor, which works out wonderfully for him. The humans move on to dessert. Something shifts anyway. Sander thanks Ello for bringing him breakfast every morning, and before long, they’re playing with the twins and having fun together.
For Winstead, it turns into a very happy Thanksgiving.
Ello Finds Ruby
The next day, Winstead is waiting in the car while Sander goes to get coffee when he spots a tiny Corgi puppy abandoned on the side of the road.
The puppy runs away before he can do anything. Meanwhile, Sander forgets to pick Ello up from school. She starts walking home and comes across the same puppy. She has no collar or microchip, so Ello brings her home. She names her Ruby.
Ruby is tiny, adorable, and even has a little heart-shaped marking on her backside. Ello falls for her immediately; Hunter does not.
With Juliana sick, his job hanging in the balance, and the family already struggling, he has no room for another responsibility. He tells Ello that Ruby has to go to a shelter, but Ello refuses.
Hunter also needs another favor from her. Mrs. O’Brien and her son Sean have recently moved to town, and Hunter asks Ello to show Sean around school. She’s reluctant, but Sean turns out to be much better company than she expected.
Hunter’s office experiment, on the other hand, is going terribly.
The employees hate the open floor plan so much that they’ve constructed their own cubicles out of cardboard. Worse, the chairman of the board, Mrs. O’Brien’s boss, is coming on Christmas Eve to inspect the office and determine the branch’s future. The cardboard has to disappear before then.
Sander Becomes Traverse City’s Golden Bachelor
While Sander is at the park with the twins and Winstead, he runs into Claire and her friends Lucille and Allison.
The three women are all widows, and Lucille becomes especially interested when she discovers that Sander is a widower too. They quickly decide he might be a good candidate for their own Traverse City version of The Golden Bachelor.
The arrangement is simple. Sander will have dinner with each woman and see what happens.
Claire is the reader who loves poetry and Joni Mitchell, which immediately gives her something in common with Sander. Allison is presented as the pretty one, while Lucille happily identifies herself as the wealthy one.
They also notice Sander’s long hair and beard. Back at home, Ello takes care of that.
It’s another small sign of how much their relationship has changed since Thanksgiving. Ello and Sander are becoming a team.
Ello is also getting closer to Sean. They run into each other at the ice rink after he joins the hockey team. When they skate together, their attraction is hard to miss. They even dance on the ice.
At home, Ello and Sander start decorating for Christmas so everything will be ready when Juliana returns. Then Hunter comes home with devastating news.
What Happens to Juliana?
Juliana’s infection has become much worse. It has spread to other vital organs, and she is now in organ failure. Doctors have placed her in a medically induced coma. The family rushes to the hospital.
Even with her mother unconscious, Ello apologizes to her and admits how terrified she is. She doesn’t know how she could survive without her.
Hunter again says that Ruby needs to go to a shelter. He simply doesn’t have the bandwidth for a puppy while Juliana is fighting for her life.
This time Sander steps in. He tells Ello they’re keeping Ruby.
When Barbara was sick, Winstead helped save Sander, and in many ways, the dog is still saving him. Sander understands why Ello needs Ruby now.
He also tells her they’re a family and will stick together. For the moment, they’re going to practice denial. Neither of them will let themselves think about what might happen to Juliana. Instead, they get burgers and even buy puppy cones for the dogs.
At school, Ello opens up to Sean about what is happening. She has wondered how he can be so confident after moving somewhere new during his senior year. Sean admits that he isn’t. He’s faking it. He wanted to be homeschooled instead of starting over at another school, but meeting Ello changed his mind.
When he realizes something is wrong, Ello tells him her mother is in the hospital, and Sean is there for her.
Claire Refuses to Treat Sander’s Grief Like a Competition
Sander’s first Golden Bachelor dinner is supposed to be with Claire. When she arrives and learns his family is dealing with a medical emergency, she immediately steps out of the competition. This isn’t the time for a dating game.
Sander asks her to stay. He explains that he and Ello are practicing denial, and he’d like to do the same for a little while with Claire. They can simply have dessert as friends; Ruby approves. She likes Claire immediately, which matters quite a lot to Winstead. From his perspective, Ruby has been bringing new people into the pack since she arrived. Dogs are supposed to make people happy, and Ruby seems especially talented at it.
Sander soon cancels the rest of his Golden Bachelor season; Claire is the only woman he’s interested in seeing.
He also makes another major decision. Sander still owns the convertible he and Barbara used to take on drives with Winstead, and it’s full of memories of their life together. He decides to sell it.
Winstead is considerably less enthusiastic about that decision because the convertible is one of the places where he can still smell Barbara. For Sander, though, keeping the car no longer makes sense. He wants something practical enough to drive his grandchildren around, although he draws the line at buying a minivan.
He’s slowly starting to choose the life he still has instead of living entirely inside the one he lost.
Juliana Finally Wakes Up
Then the family gets the call they’ve been waiting for: Juliana is awake.
She is going to survive, although her recovery won’t be immediate. Brain swelling has caused acute flaccid paralysis, and she will need rehabilitation to regain control of her body. Hunter spends his days at the hospital helping her.
He feeds her and stays beside her as she begins the difficult work of recovering. Eventually, Juliana is able to speak again and recevies by Hunter her engagement ring back. Their marriage isn’t magically repaired simply because she survived.
Back at home, Claire continues becoming part of Sander’s life. She comes over and helps him wash the twins, and Winstead notices something important about her. Claire chases Sander’s sadness away, before leaving, Sander and Claire kiss.
What Does Barbara’s Note Say?
Selling the convertible is harder on Winstead than anyone realizes.
For him, the car still smells like Barbara. Losing it means losing another physical connection to her. Back in Sander’s bedroom, Winstead keeps pulling at a particular book. Eventually, Sander pays attention and looks inside.
There is a note from Barbara. She wrote it knowing that she would die soon, and she wanted Sander to understand that she was ready. More importantly, she didn’t want her death to become the end of his life.
Barbara asks him to open his heart wider and find love again. That’s what she wants for him.
Sander finally has permission from the person he has been unable to let go of, and Claire is already there.
Can Hunter Save His Job?
While Sander is finally moving forward, Hunter still has a cardboard problem at work.
Sander comes up with the solution. Dressed as a fire marshal, he arrives at the office and helps Hunter get the homemade cardboard cubicles removed before the chairman’s visit. It works.
Mrs. O’Brien later tells Hunter that he’s getting the promotion. But by then, Hunter’s priorities have changed. He has a counteroffer of his own.
Do Ello and Sean Get Together?
Christmas is also looking considerably better for Ello.
She and Sean have paid attention to the things that matter to each other, and their Christmas gifts prove it.
Ello gives Sean a book by Wayne Gretzky that has been signed by Gretzky himself. Sean gives Ello a letter from one of her favorite skaters, Meryl Davis, they kiss.
Then, appropriately enough for Ello, they go dance skating together.
Sander has his own Christmas gift for Claire: festival tickets. While they’re outside together, they spot a red cardinal.
Claire explains a belief that cardinals can carry the souls of loved ones who have died. Winstead knows exactly who he thinks this one represents.
Barbara has been connected to the cardinal since her death, and now it appears as Sander lets himself fall for someone new.
Winstead has a simpler interpretation; the cardinal wants Claire in the pack.
A Dog’s Perfect Christmas Ending Explained: Does Juliana Come Home for Christmas?
Juliana continues getting better, but she isn’t well enough to leave the hospital for Christmas Eve.
That doesn’t mean Christmas can’t come to her. Now that she is out of intensive care, the family arranges a surprise. Carrie, Sean, and the rest of the family come to the hospital, while Winstead and Ruby manage to get inside after Sander pretends to be blind.
The nurses allow them to use a beautifully decorated room left over from a gala the previous night.
For the first time since Juliana fell ill, the whole family can celebrate together.
Hunter also has something important to tell his wife. Mrs. O’Brien offered him the vice president position, but he turned it down.
Instead, Hunter arranged a consulting job that lets him work from home. If Juliana wants to return to her career, she can. Hunter will also be there to take care of the family.
It directly answers the problem Juliana raised before she became ill. Going back to work wasn’t much of an option when the rest of the household still automatically belonged to her. Hunter isn’t simply promising to spend a little more time at home. He’s changing his work so they can divide their lives differently.
For now, that gives them a way forward.
Sander has found one too. Barbara’s note helps him understand that loving Claire doesn’t mean leaving his wife behind. The cardinal appearing while he’s with Claire connects the beginning and end of that journey. Barbara is still part of Sander and Winstead’s lives, but Sander doesn’t have to remain frozen in the grief that has consumed him for two years.
Ruby has played her own part in getting him there.
She enters the family’s life when nearly everyone is struggling with something. Ello needs comfort while her mother is sick. Sander needs a reason to reconnect with his family. Claire becomes closer to him partly through Ruby. Even Winstead sees from the beginning that this tiny puppy is expanding their pack.
By Christmas, his pack is bigger than it was before.
And the movie has one final surprise. After Winstead narrates the entire story, we finally hear Ruby talk.
The puppy Winstead watched being abandoned at the beginning of the movie has found exactly where she belongs.
