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Dog's Life (Video Game) - TV Tropes

Dog's Life is a PlayStation 2 game developed by Frontier Developments initially released on the 31st of October 2003. In the game you meet Jake, a slick farmhouse dog with some... ahem... vile habits and a crush on the neighbor's dog, Daisy. But Daisy is kidnapped and with a plot set into motion, it's up to the heroic Jake to rescue her with plenty of challenges, scent sniffing, ripping fur off cats, Innocent Innuendo and even crapping on the sidewalk. Yup, it's that kind of game...

Everything's going nicely, fun challenges, comedic characters and random acts of pointless defecating. This game is obviously a happy, childish one... until Miss Peaches moves onto the scene and this kid's game reaches a whole new level. The evil business woman is plotting to make a new kind of cat food... made from all the dogs she's kidnapped. And Daisy's the first to be tested...

The game was praised for its premise because, let's face it, who doesn't like the idea of controlling a lifelike dog? Although, it was criticized for its weird camera scheme. Also, as of 2009, it holds the world record for most voice-overs done by one person in a video game with Kerry Shale voicing over 30 different characters.

Don't confuse with DogLife.

• Air-Vent Passageway: When Jake enters Miss Peaches' house, he appears in a factory hall, but the exit of the hall is an air vent despite the fact that he entered through a door. The reason for this is never given.
• Alliterative Name: Tistrum Tittletattle, who also speaks in alliteration.
• Ambiguous Gender:
  • Most of the dogs save for Jake, Daisy, Lopez the Chihuahua, Pixie Frou-Frou and the sheepdog.
  • Killer's gender is never revealed despite the fact he/she has the second most appearances of any dog in the game.
• Ambiguously Gay: The Elton John parody "Elton Jack", Tistrum Tittletattle, and to a lesser extent, the waiter at Lake Minniwahwah Café.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: The international box art has Jake in front of the villainous Miss Peaches. The Japanese box art has Jake frolicking at a farm.
• Animals See in Monochrome: When seeing through Jake's POV, everything is in monochrome except for scents.
• Bigger on the Inside: Miss Peaches' house.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Miss Peaches. On the surface she's a cheery cat-loving businesswoman, while in private she is a Bad Boss who steals other people's dogs to use as cat food.
• Bowdlerise: The Japanese ending cutscene of the game has a few differences from the international one; mainly the one where it cuts short, removing the part where Miss Peaches is fed back into the machine and said machine announces she is cat food, followed by the cans falling off the conveyor belt. There also seems to be a gun-cocking sound added to the Japanese version just before Jake "kills" her. The exact changes can be seen in the video comparison to the right (which has some minor texture errors due to emulation; everything else should be the same as usual). The changes here, along with the other ones done in the final room, seem to be their way of making the game more "kid-friendly" (although this was their audience in the first place).
• Cats Are Mean: More like cat owners are mean. All open cat owners are very hostile toward Jake and comment on how they hate dogs. Miss Peaches takes the cake for rudeness, though.
• Cerebus Syndrome: It's a mostly lighthearted, comedic game until the Dog Pound. There's also a progression towards bleaker environments with more hostile inhabitants as the game goes on. The early rural areas are sunny while the urban city is rainy.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • The game allows you to play basketball in certain levels. They just seem like fun little minigames and aren't required to progress through the game, however, what does the final mission require you to do? Toss three spanners into the Big Machine. If you have played the basketball minigames, this is way easier to do. The game is very subtle about this, however.
  • Jake's ability to let out killer farts.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The scientist in Clarksville who wants to be the first person ever to send a model rocket to Pluto.
• Conveyor Belt o' Doom: The Big Machine in the final level.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Miss Peaches... IS... cat food!
• Cruella to Animals: Probably. Why use dogs to make cat food instead of normal ingredients, anyway? Unless, of course, you are one sadistic bastard.
• Damsel in Distress: Daisy, especially in the final level when you have to save her from the Big Machine.
• Death Glare: Implied in the Lake Minniwahwah radio station, where Elton Jack lies about being able to impersonate Stan's favorite celebrity, Leonardo D'Saprio.

  Elton Jack: Boys? Why are looking at me like that?

• Defeat Means Playable: By beating a local dog in a minigame, you get to control that dog for a limited amount of time, but you can only play them in the level they are found on.
• Detective Animal: Jake finds Daisy all by himself, but bonus points for somehow being able to figure out that Miss Peaches is behind it all. He never comes into contact with Miss Peaches and the audience learns she is the antagonist through cutscenes that do not include Jake. And yet, as he soon as he enters the cat food factory, he instantly knows Miss Peaches isn't "making ordinary cat food." Or it might just be a Plot Hole. There is plenty of dark foreshadowing on the radio stations, though, so presumably Jake could have put together the pieces of the dognappings and Peaches' new cat food, along with her barely veiled hatred of dogs in general.
• Diabolical Dogcatcher: Averted. The dogcatcher seems to like his job, but he gives up rather easily if he doesn't catch the dog in 10 seconds. At the end, he states he's had it with his job and goes off to do his dream job - programming computer games.
• Did They or Didn't They?: Hank, the Clarksville radio host, used to know Miss Peaches. He starts to say he "remembers the time when they-" before being interrupted by Clarisse.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: One of the songs the guitarist in Boom City performs is the main menu music. He also performs the credits music.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Dwayne asks if Miss Peaches is going to hurt the little doggy seconds after she tells him that the dog is going to be "sliced, diced and mashed."
• Dreadful Musician:
  • Kurt Chickenbrian, the Giftedly Bad guitarist in Clarksville, can play guitar well but his vocals are awful.
  • Gramps is just as bad at singing.
  • Subverted with Elton Jack. He can play the piano, but his audience still boos and throws tomatoes at him.
• Dumb Muscle: Dwayne isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the box.
• Establishing Character Moment: When we first meet Jake, he tries to impress Daisy with a vile fart. Talk about an establishing character moment... This both foreshadows the final showdown and is a simultaneous brick joke about Jake farting in front of his crush.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The dogcatcher.
• Evil Laugh: Miss Peaches' laugh. It'll actually scare you due to how intensely maniacal it is.
• Failed a Spot Check: The sheriff in Boom City, who is looking for a criminal and gets Jake to help find him. Maybe if he looked in that building behind him, he would have found him easier.
• Fake Longevity: Most of the minigames are repeated at least four or five times over the course of the game, and each area has the same amount of collectible scents and bones. The most extreme example is the Mountain Slide, where scents are all bunched together at the top of the level. The game is not all that long even with this padding, however.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Miss Peaches, who is sliced, diced and mashed into cat food. Remember this is a kid's game!
• Fartillery: Jake's "talent" of unleashing absolutely toxic farts. In the opening cutscene they are noxious enough to kill a butterfly that happens by. And in the end, this is what defeats Miss Peaches.
• Forced Level-Grinding: To progress to the next town, you have to get more bones than the dogcatcher's Doberman, especially if you have just escaped from him.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The radio plays advertisements for "Miss Peaches' Crunchy Cat Food" and "Miss Peaches' Cat Food in a Can" regularly.
  • In one of Miss Peaches' commercials, she says that her employees undergo "thorough skin examination to prevent nasty dog fleas." The "employees" she refers to are most likely the kidnapped dogs.
  • The voiceover in the "Cat Food in a Can" commercial says "Miss Peaches! Is! Cat food!"
  • Miss Peaches has a "sensitivity to rude or coarse behavior."
• Free-Range Pets: Jake is apparently owned by a boy but is allowed to run around by himself. The other dogs are also treated similarly, even city dogs, though the dogcatcher sometimes appears to try and capture them.
• Gasshole: Jake has a tendency to unleash killer farts. It comes in handy at the end of the game.
• Groin Attack: Two kids want Jake to collect some eggs for them so they can throw them at the butcher... They have a hell of an aim.
• Heal Thyself: Bones and other food items restore Jake's health - unless the latter have gone bad, in which case Jake's health decreases instead.
• Heel–Face Turn: ALL of Miss Peaches' henchmen. The dogcatcher gets bored of the job and leaves to pursue his dream of "developing computer games" and Wayne and Dwayne later open up their own hypoallergenic dog grooming parlor.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Miss Peaches, courtesy of the Big Machine.
• I Am Very British: The Boom City radio host, Tistrum Tittletattle.
• Idiot Ball: When the woodcutter gets his axe back, he tosses it up in the air repeatedly.
• Improbable Infant Survival: Jake can grab cats and rip all the fur off them, leaving them bare. In a mission where he has to rescue kittens, the same rules do not apply.
• Innocent Innuendo:
  • The "Talking Pussy" segment is packed with these.
  • Gramps defies this trope at every opportunity.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Wayne, one of Miss Peaches' henchmen, is very bitter and frustrated (most likely due to his dog allergies). He redeems himself at the end of the game when he and Dwayne open up a hypoallergenic dog grooming parlor where Wayne loves playing with the dogs.
• Jerkass:
  • Aside from the obvious Miss Peaches, the butcher and the shopkeeper in the Clarksville centre are complete assholes to Jake. The butcher threatens to shoot Jake if he doesn't go away, but that doesn't stop him from laughing if Jake farts or poos on his doorstep.

    "I hate dogs! Scram, you, before I get my gun!"

  • A lot of the pedestrians too.
  • Brittany Christina on Lake Minniwahwah's radio show. And she's only 8 years old!
• Karmic Death: "Miss Peaches! Is! Cat food!"
• Kick the Dog: More like kidnap the dog, slice, dice and mash it into cat food, then sell it.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • When the cable car runner gives Jake a bone for rescuing his brother, he states that he "always keeps a spare bone in [his] pocket should a dog help in a daring rescue." This is still a bit strange because he has his own dog, so his reason for having a bone in his pocket is pretty much justified whereas characters like the mailman, the scientist and the guitar players don't.
  • The "C.H.I.C.K." radio station in Clarksville has to repeat itself because Hank thinks he forgot to press the transmitter button, meaning they have to do the whole show all over again.
  • In Boom City, you have to help a woman get all her runaway kittens back into her house. She appears on the Boom City radio and explains that the kittens have escaped again, and she then figures that it's because there is no door on her house.
  • When the sheepdog gets all the sheep in the pen, the farmer says that it's the fastest she's ever done it, "almost like she was possessed."
• Lovable Coward: The scientist. He's crazy, funny and completely useless.
• Minigame Zone: You can play with a fruit machine in some levels that offers real fruit.
• Minion with an F in Evil: While Wayne and the dogcatcher don't do anything specifically evil except follow Miss Peaches' malicious orders, Dwayne is this trope to a T. He doesn't know what Miss Peaches is going to do with the dogs and constantly asks for reassurance that she won't hurt them. Plus, he actually wants to play with the dogs he has just kidnapped.
• Money Spider: Surprisingly yes in a game that has no enemies or money. Every single human Jake helps hands him a bone as a reward. While this can sometimes be justified as some are dog owners, you can't help but ask yourself why a postman, a pianist, a farmer or even a scientist keeps a spare bone on them.
• Mood Whiplash: Going from completing challenges in the fairly upbeat Boom City Park to rescuing all the captured dogs in the Darker and Edgier Dog Pound.
• Mooks, but No Bosses
• Never Say "Die":
  • Daisy will be "sliced, diced, and mashed" in the Big Machine.
  • Done outright with Miss Peaches. "Miss Peaches! Is! Cat food!"
• Oh, Crap!: At the start of the game, Jake witnesses Daisy being kidnapped and runs after the truck, barking. This prompts the truck to stop and Dwayne steps out. Jake's expression can only be described as, "Oh crap."
• Planet of Steves: In Clarksville, everyone's surname begins with 'Chicken.' Hiram J. Chickenplucker, Clarisse Chickenfoot, Gramps Chickenfart, Kurt Chickenbrian. Also, Miss Peaches came from Clarksville and her real name is Loretta Chickenmeat. Wonder why she changed it?
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: Miss Peaches is way more polite than Jake, the constantly farting dog.
• Product Displacement: In the North American release, all advertising for Pedigree was replaced with the fictional "Chow Chow" dog food brand.
• Product Placement: Advertising for Pedigree dog food can be seen throughout the game, as well as vending machines in certain areas that dispense cans of the stuff that Jake can eat, can included.
• Pun:
  • Tistrum Tittletattle tells Miss Peaches that if she was a dog lover, she could call herself "Miss Pooches." Miss Peaches is less than amused.
  • Miss Peaches gives us an unintentional one. "This isn't the last you'll see of me-OWWW!!"
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "Miss Peaches! Is! Cat food!"
• Save Point: Through the use of dog houses.
• Save the Princess: Well, save Daisy the dog.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: The dogcatcher does this after failing to catch Jake at the Dog Pound.
• Sequel Hook: Averted. Miss Peaches swears vengeance on the two dogs but dies seconds later.
• Shout-Out:
  • Parrots will sometimes say "Intruder! Intruder! Ex-ter-min-ate! Ex-ter-min-ate!"
  • Elton Jack, who does an impersonation of John Ravolta.
  • One of Elton Jack's wigs is an Elvis one.
  • Stan's favorite celebrity is Leonardo D'Saprio, who starred in a movie about a sinking ship.
  • Elton is fond of these. When Jake finds the first wig, he calls him "Scooby."
  • Gramps likes watching Kylie videos.
  • 8-year-old pop princess "Brittany Christina."
• Slapstick: Averted. Miss Peaches falls into the Big Machine and emerges as an oversized can. Then she is pulled back into the machine and killed. Just so there cannot be any doubt, we then see a row of very small cans coming out of the machine...
• Some Call Me "Tim":
  • "I'm Hiram J. Chickenplucker but you can call me Hank."
  • Miss Peaches' real name is Loretta, but everyone calls her "Miss Peaches."
• Spanner in the Works: Literally. To beat the game, you have to throw three spanners into the Big Machine.
• Stock Animal Diet: Jake collects and eats bones throughout the game.
• Theme Twin Naming: The "Loud Brothers" Dan and Stan.
• They Have the Scent!: Smell-O-Vision allows Jake to find hidden objects, bones and footprints.
• Those Two Guys: Wayne and Dwayne, Miss Peaches' henchmen who handle the dognapping.
• Timed Mission: Some of the minigames with the local dogs are timed, and likewise, you can only control them for a limited time. You also have to turn off all parts of the Big Machine in the final level before Daisy reaches any of them, otherwise it's a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Title Drop: At the end. "Well, that's the story of a Dog's Life."
• Toilet Humour: The reason this game received a T rating in the US. Seriously. In the UK, it received a 3+ and other countries gave it lower ratings. But then again, crapping on the sidewalk, picking up that crap and throwing it about is probably just a tad much...
• Two Words: Added Emphasis: When Hank asks Clarisse if the caller is available again, she replies, "One word: Uh-uh."
• Vague Hit Points: Jake possesses no Life Meter, but you can tell where his hit points are at by watching how he moves. At full health, Jake romps around energetically; the weaker he is, the slower he walks and the more depressed he looks.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can bark and growl at people and other animals, carry around and toss chickens, rats and cats in addition to shaking their fur/feathers off, poop to gross out people...
• Villain with Good Publicity: Miss Peaches, the number 1 name in cat food and a huge celebrity with an equally huge fanbase.
• You ALL Look Familiar: Some of the NPCs have recycled character models, whereas the pedestrians all have the exact same one.
• You Have Failed Me: Implied. At one point Peaches asks Dwayne if he knows "what happens to idiots who disappoint [her]."
• You Watch Too Much X: Jake thinks that a number of the Non Player Characters watch too much cable television. Or mad scientist movies. Or ___
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Miss Peaches' warning on the "Talking Pussy" segment. "You cross Miss Peaches and she will SLAP YOU SILLY!"
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle! : Jake has to venture through three different towns before he finally finds Daisy.

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