Premiering at the Elks Theatre: The Year Of The Dog

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) -If you are looking for something to do this weekend, a new independent feature film is set to premiere this Friday. For one week only The Year of The Dog will play at the Elks theater in Downtown Rapid City.

The movie is based on a true story and shows the journey of a young man named Matt who is at rock bottom and struggling to maintain sobriety for 30 days. Matt is helped along after he finds a stray Alaskan husky with a unique talent.

“I had gone on a dog mushing trip in Montana, and there was a gentleman who was leading the trip which was struggling with sobriety himself and he attributed his staying sober to his relationship with one of his lead dogs, This Alaskan husky had entered a weight pull competition something like 24-hundred pounds and it beat these much larger breeds. When I got home after that I started to kinda riff on that story.” Rob Grabow, the writer and one of the lead actors in The Year of the Dog stated.

The film stars South Dakota-born Lakota actor Michael Spears and a dog named Caleb. Some of the film’s net proceeds will go to The Humane Society of the Black Hills in Rapid City in Caleb’s honor.

“Caleb our lead dog in the film is actually a rescue husky, people had passed Caleb between homes because they got really excited that a Siberian husky was really beautiful, but they did not account for the fact that they are also very energetic, and he kept being passed between home because he was ‘too much dog.’ And um though that high energy actually worked beautifully on camera.” Garbow added.

While the main focus of the film is on Matt’s journey and the relationship, he builds with his dog. Grabow believes that this story is a beautiful testament to the value of all dogs, particularly rescue animals.

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