GIFs, graphics and box score reconstruction by Kent Garrison.



The feats of athleticism that you see in the 1997 classic “Air Bud” are all real. It may have required many, many takes, but Buddy the dog actually shot those free throws, assisted on those baskets and willed his team to victory. Along the way, he created a real bond with Kevin Zegers, the boy who played his best friend, Josh Framm.



After speaking with roughly a dozen people involved in the making of the movie, The Athletic can now report, with a great degree of confidence, that the real Buddy was a good boy.



How did a low-budget project filmed in Vancouver become, against all odds, one of the most beloved kids sports movies of all time? Director Charles Martin Smith turned a semi-famous trick shot artist who happened to be a golden retriever into a bona fide movie star, and by the end, Buddy was flying on private jets to Planet Hollywoods around the United States to promote a film...