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Or, hey, what about MVP: Most Valuable Primate? It's about a chimpanzee that plays hockey. I know that chimpanzees are different from dogs, but the film still falls into the popular "animal capable of things you wouldn't expect befriends lonely child" film genre, so I think it's OK.

What do all of these movies have in common? In every one of them, the father is dead. In Air Bud, the kid is sad because his dad just died in a plane crash. MVP starts off with the death of a kindly scientist who functioned as a father figure for the chimp. The kid that Soccer Dog befriends in the movie Soccer Dog: The Movie is an orphan. The crime that the boy and dog team up to solve in Cop Dog is the murder of the child's father.

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I have no idea why this is. Sure, I've written a gritty screenplay about a corgi that stalks the night committing people crimes (because there's no rule that says a dog can't sexually assault), but that doesn't make me an expert on the genre. Maybe it's too believable to imagine a kid with a father being lonely enough to have a dog as a best friend. Maybe the writers think all dads hate dogs. Or maybe Air Bud made the choice first and then every producer in Hollywood said, "Just do that again with a different sport. That exact thing." We'll never know. All we know is that if you see some lonely kid striking up a good relationship with a dog that has a tennis racket in its mouth, you better find that kid's dad and tell him to watch out.