Year Released: 2023
Directed by: Stephen Herid
Starring: Dog Gone: Zippy Chicken and Corn Chowder Recipe 🥁🥁🥁 1/2
(PG, 95 min.)
Genre: Drama

“It’s nice to have one soul on earth who thinks you’re fine just the way your are.” – Fielding Marshall

Ok, it’s a little sappy at the start, but slowly we discover this is much more than just a hunt for a missing dog. It’s really a coming of age tale about his owner.

Fielding Marshall (Johnny Berchtold) is lost long before his dog is. He graduates from college, but he even misses the ceremony. And his father is not too happy either

“Well, I’m sure it’s worth the six-hour round trip just to see four thousand strangers all dress in the same outfit. “

Fielding has no idea what he wants to do, even though all of his friends have already landed jobs or on to graduate school. So he just goes back home with the yellow lab he adopted his senior year after his girlfriend dropped him.

Again John Marshall (Rob Lowe), Fielding’s father in not amused:

“There he is. The stinking foul beast, and he brought his dog.”

Named Gonker because of his propensity to conk his indulgent owner on his head, the canine does, however, have a few ingratiating habits. Such as flipping a doughnut high into the air and catching it.

Gonker also loves to retrieve, but only the sticks he chooses. At first Fielding’s father John objects, since Gonker’s barking interrupts the highly paid consultant’s zoom call, but before long he’s into the game himself, even identifying the sticks.

“I see you have chosen a fine birch limb, today. Nice choice,” he tells Gonker

However, it’s not just sticks that entice Gonker; he really goes for the foxes that sometimes appear at the outskirts of the family property. And of course, Fielding, who yearns for freedom as much as Gonker, encourages these adventures, even after his father has installed an electric fence guaranteed to stop the exodus of any dog.

Not so with Gonker, who barely hesitates before launching into the woods after a fox. Fielding loves this triumph over technology, but soon he will have to depend on it, since Gonker has gone after a fox again – this time along the nearby Appalachian Trail.

And this time he doesn’t come back.

Adding to the crisis is Gonker’s newly diagnosed Addison’s disease, for which he needs a monthly injection.

So the countdown begins – somewhat like the screen that highlights the number of “Days on their Own,” documentary fashion at the bottom left of the screen in 2006’s Eight Below.

Soon the kitchen becomes a command center, with Fielding’s “analogue” mom Ginny (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) piling up phone books for all the nearest cities. Soon she is pulled into the digital world, though, and before long Ginny is instagramming with the best of them. She is motivated by her strong bond with Gonker and past memories of a beloved dog she lost when she was a child.

But it is the real not the digital world that Fielding and his father pursue as they become trackers, a daunting task since the Virginia arm of the Appalachian Trail is 550 miles long. Trekking the trail and papering the local towns with their poster yields lots of advice, but no results.

One piece of advice they follow is to let Gonker’s large and shaggy dog buddy come along with them, his scent supposed to help Gonkers find them.

Father and son grow bold, too, sneaking into their motel room with their hairy companion under John Fielding’s jacket, a tight fit for the large canine who no way meets the under 15 pound limit of the motel.

John Marshall: Ancient trading caravans on the Silk Road would stop at campgrounds on their way to the Orient. You know what they called those?

Fielding: Holiday Inns that don’t allow dogs?

John Marshall: Caravansaries. Not only were their camels allowed inside, the guards would welcome them and protect them. We are a caravansary. So they are required to welcome our camp.

(Different Drummer admits to being guilty of a few desperate sneak-inn, too, one of which involved a curtain rod posing as a blind man’s cane and our Weimaraner Spaetzle doing his best to look like a guide dog.)

A now bolder Fielding “screws his courage to the sticking place” and approaches a gang of bikers to ask for their help. Strangely, under their tattoos and black leather, these guys are softies when it comes to dogs, and they vow to spread the work to other bikers.

But maybe the best help comes from a set of Millennials who share a campfire with the father and son. While Fielding strums his guitar, his father, the highly paid consultant, gets some expert advice beyond his ken from these “aimless youth.”

Youth: Some people know exactly what they want. And others don’t. At the end of the day, we’re all just walking the trail. It’s just some of us want to wait a bit longer before we step off. That’s all.

John Marshall: You know, I think my son’s been trying to tell me his version of that like half a dozen times. I don’t know why I didn’t hear it until now.

Youth: It’s because I’m not your son.

***

Disappointment and danger follow, but the bond between father and son grows strong after this eye opening conversation.

Gonker may or may not remain lost, but Fielding no longer is.

P.S. Don’t miss the credits where the behind the scenes crew share pictures of themselves with their own canines. Dog Lovers All!

–Kathy Borich
🥁🥁🥁 1/2

Trailer

Film–Loving Foodie

Fielding and his father usually stop at Virginia motels and dinners for their food as they cover almost 111 miles of the Appalachian Trail looking for Gonker. This “gently spiced” Zippy chicken and Corn Chowder recipe comes from Andrea Early of Harrisburg, Virginia.

It certainly seems like the kind of thing John and Fielding Marshall might have at one of the local diners.

And there is still enough of winter left, – at least six weeks if we are to believe Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction – for you to want this simple and warming chowder.

Cook it up for the whole family and serve it as you trek the Appalachian Trail right along with Fielding and his dad, keeping your eyes peeled for Gonker, of course.

Zippy Chicken and Corn Chowder

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon paprika
2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 carton (32 ounces) chicken broth
1 skinned rotisserie chicken, shredded
6 cups fresh or frozen corn
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 to 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup 2% milk

Directions

1. In a stockpot, heat butter over medium-high heat. Add onion and pepper; cook, stirring, until vegetables are crisp-tender, 3-4 minutes. Stir in flour and paprika until blended.
2. Add potatoes; stir in broth. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, covered, until tender, 12-15 minutes.
3. Stir in chicken, corn, sauces and salt; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook, uncovered, until corn is tender, 4-6 minutes. Add milk; heat through (do not boil).

Taste of Home.com