Pixar Shorts:
Dug's Special Mission

In this case, Dug's Special Mission was created for Up and tells the audience the back story of what Dug was doing out there on the table-top mountain when he meets Carl and Russell. It runs 4:40 and was released in November 2009 with the .

The Plot for Dug's Special Mission

Alpha, Beta and Gamma chase Kevin the colorful bird across the land while in another area, Dug is relaxing and smelling flowers. Just as he turns around, Kevin leaps over him and the three dogs chasing the bird run into Dug. Kevin escapes as Gamma the bulldog complains that Dug is always getting in the way.

Dug tells us that today is his birthday and that he wants to have a very happy day. But Alpha, the lead doberman dog, says in his squeaky voice that their master will be most displeased with him that the bird escaped. So Alpha decides to send Dug on a "special mission all by yourself" to keep him out of their way while they find Kevin again.

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Dug is excited and enthusiastic about accepting his mission. The first mission from Alpha is to watch a big rock, the profile of which looks like an ape's head. A small pebble gets loose and dislodges the giant boulder and it rolls down after the three dogs, nearly crushing them.

The next mission Dug gets is to sit in a hole and not get out under any circumstances. This scene in the Pixar short is so cute with the detail: Dug's left ear is turned inside out, as some dog's ears do when they flop about. As Alpha and his gang leave, the hole begins to sink from sand inside. Dug sinks with it and goes through a twisty, turny tunnel and falls through the other end, right on top of the three dogs just as they are about to pounce on Kevin in the distance.

After the hole, Alpha commands Dug to sit on a rock as he pushes Dug forward. Dug leaps to the second rock and the other one the others are on teeters back and forth and they fall down.

Time after time, Alpha, Beta and Gamma get caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, being trapped, triggering tranquilizer darts (which stuck Beta as he fell down asleep) or Dug leading them on chanting "Find the bird, Find the bird" as the rock towers he bounded on toppled down when the rest of the dogs followed.

From the depths below, Alpha radios their master, Charles Muntz, up in the blimp hovering above. He reports that Dug has prevented them from capturing the bird and that he is a bad dog. Scared, Dug runs off into the misty, rocky landscape. He overhears the dogs on his radio device on his collar talking about how he's going to get it and he sadly states that it's been a bad birthday.

As he walks around he takes note that one rock formation looks like a turtle and the next looks like a man. Then he hears human voices. He thinks that the form IS a man and goes toward it. He hears the voices again and shouts out (via the speaker in his collar) "Hey are you OK over there?"

He sniffs the air as dogs do and proclaims, "I can smell you!" Then Carl and Russell come into view, saying he has a good birthday after all and it was the happiest day of his life because these are his new masters.

Now we're at the part of this Pixar short that blends seamlessly into the feature film Up. Russell excitedly talks about the different rock formations too, and he points to Dug saying he looks like a dog, thinking he was a rock formation as well. Dug runs over and Russell exclaims that it IS a dog!

As the credits roll Russell gives Dug some simple commands like "sit" and "shake hands". Then Russell tells Dug to "speak" and he says, through his collar, "Hi there," which surprises the heck out of Carl and Russell.