Matialth
Good concept, poorly executed.
Plustown
A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Sameer Callahan
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Gary
The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
Prismark10
This Pixar short is based on the moment just before Dug encounters the characters from Up.It is Dug's birthday and he wants it to be his happiest day. However the other dogs, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma want Dug out of the way and give him missions to catch the multi coloured bird.The trouble is each time they tell Dug to do something, it backfires on the three dogs.This cartoon short has elements of Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner feel about it. The short is a bit mean on Dug and it does not entirely tie up well with Up.
Gordon-11
This animated short film tells the story of a dog called Dug. He is given a series of special missions on his birthday by dogs with an ulterior motive. He takes the missions seriously, and they lead to unexpected results."Dug's Special Mission" is a funny and sweet animation. The series of missions are funny, and they lead to even more funnier scenes. It is an entertaining short film.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
The first 15 minutes from "Up" are among the best what Pixar has ever put on screen. Afterwards, it goes considerably down in quality and this five-minute short film is unfortunately not much better. Basically, it tells us about Dug right before he meets the old man and the boy. Dug keeps getting in the way of the other dogs in their attempts to catch the wonder-bird, so they try to keep him busy with pointless tasks, but keep failing (and occasionally getting hurt) as he always gets in their way. The one thing special about this short film compared to other Pixar short films is that it neither plays before or after the feature film it's linked to, but exactly at the same time, just focuses on a character we did not see at this point of time in the movie. That's why it could easily be included in the film.However, I'd only really recommend it to children, for whom Dug is probably the highlight of the movie, or those who really enjoyed Up and the alpha dog's high-pitched voice, which I personally found more distracting than funny in the long run. It's an okay add-on to a decent film, but you're really not missing much.
dogman15
Being a Pixar fan, I was looking forward to this short film ever since it was announced. Heck, I was eager for it even BEFORE it was announced, because Pixar always includes a second short film on their DVDs. While I can see by the ratings here on IMDb that some people didn't enjoy it as much as I did (I can see why, if they're comparing it to "Up"), I still think that this short film had a number of elements that made it very enjoyable to watch.All the humor that comes with Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Dug is here, as well as Alpha's "broken collar" joke. However, this film did have a few discrepancies with the feature film it was based on that bothered me slightly. They're mostly anachronisms or continuity errors, but I can forgive them considering that this film is supposedly a representation of how Dug remembers these events, just like the "Married Life" sequence in "Up" was supposed to be how Carl Fredricksen remembered his marriage with Ellie.This film isn't all physical humor, though. Before I go on, please note that you shouldn't watch this until you've seen the feature film it's based on. Anyway, after Alpha gets fed up with Dug, Dug is (to be brief) very sad and alienated. Pixar does their thing with the emotions, and Dug runs away into some fog-filled rocks. The first time I saw that, I felt sorry for Dug. However, as per his birthday wish (it is his birthday, after all), he finds "a new master": Carl and Russell. What a nice alternate location story!