The film opens in a dim, isolated house deep in the woods. A Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever named Indy wakes from a shallow sleep when he thinks he hears an odd sound. His owner, Todd, suddenly begins to cough and dribble blood from his mouth. Todd's sister Vera arrives and screams for help as she finds him in the darkened room; attendants take Todd away and Vera holds Indy in the doorway. Moments later the narrative shows footage of Indy as a puppy through to the present, and Todd returns from the hospital carrying the dog with him. Todd drives out of the city to the old rural house that belonged to his late grandfather, intending to live there despite Vera's repeated objections that the place is haunted and that Todd's health is fragile.

Indy enters the house reluctantly and explores the rooms in cautious circles. Todd watches home movies of his grandfather sitting with a golden retriever named Bandit and coughs as he does so. The next day Todd walks Indy through the surrounding woods and past the family cemetery. A neighbor, a man named Richard, approaches them wearing a black bodysuit; Todd confronts him and Richard identifies himself as the neighbor who found Todd's grandfather dead. Richard tells Todd that Bandit went missing the day his grandfather was discovered and warns them that he has set fox traps around the property. Indy follows Richard's shadowy figure with alert, anxious steps.

That night Indy perceives a presence in the house that comes and goes like a shadow. He sees a dark, skeletal figure drenched in mud moving through the hallway; at other times the presence manifests as a pale apparition of Bandit that seems to want to lead Indy upstairs. The apparition pads ahead and pauses under a wardrobe; Indy noses at a hidden space and finds a worn bandana that Bandit once wore. When Indy touches the bandana he is hit by a vision: a monstrous hand crawling out of a closet and a memory of Todd's grandfather coughing violently. Indy's dreams become populated by the same dark figure walking through a misty cemetery toward him.

Todd's condition worsens steadily. He begins coughing up blood frequently, growing pale and lethargic, and Vera calls him constantly on the phone. At home he lashes out and tells Indy to leave him alone when the dog tries to comfort him. On one night Todd bashes his head against the basement door in a confused, fevered state; Indy watches from the doorway. Later, while Todd sleeps fitfully, Indy becomes aware of the dark figure approaching the bedroom. Todd wakes in a daze and stumbles out of the room. He opens a window and tries to run toward Richard's house for help, but in the cold, dark yard he gets caught in one of Richard's fox traps. He lies there coughing, and when he is rescued he angrily chains Indy outside to a doghouse as punishment for whatever imagined disobedience the man believes Indy committed.

Left to the elements, Indy remains alert to the house's sounds. During one of the nights chained to the doghouse he hears Todd coughing upstairs and the same wet, heavy steps of the dark presence outside the house. The figure attempts to attack the dog; Indy fights and he manages to knock the doghouse over by wrenching it from its anchor. He slips the chain and runs through the open cellar door into the house. In the cellar Indy discovers bones and the cadaver of Bandit tucked behind a wardrobe. He sniffs the skeleton, and through the bandana and the smell he experiences another vision of the grandfather coughing and a sense that the house keeps the same sickness in its walls.

Indy rushes up the stairs to the bedroom as Todd convulses on the bed, coughing blood in spasms. Todd's eyes become glassy and he turns to face his own corpse laid out on the bed; he realizes he is a specter observing his own dead body. A black, mud-slick figure fills the doorway. The entity seizes Todd and begins to drag him across the floor toward the cellar. Indy chases after them, barking frantically and leaping at the creature as it hauls Todd down the stairs. Todd, collapsing under his own weakness, tells Indy in a broken voice that he is a good dog and that Indy cannot save him. As the entity pulls Todd through the doorway and into the earthen tunnel beneath the house, his skin appears to dissolve and slough away; the figure envelops him in muck and drags him into darkness. The sound of coughing is extinguished.

At dawn Vera arrives at the house and discovers Todd's body on the bed. She opens the cellar door and calls for Indy. On the exterior steps leading down to the cellar she finds Indy sitting motionless. He pauses when Vera calls his name and then walks toward her; she takes him home, grief and confusion etched on her face.

After the credits, the film includes a short, documentary-style clip showing director Ben Leonberg with the real-life Indy. The footage documents how the dog was filmed over more than a year, how the animal is untrained in theatrical performance, and how some of Indie's fear in certain scenes is a raw reaction to his owner's absence. Leonberg and Indy react to a faint extra noise off-camera and turn their heads as the clip ends.

The film cuts abruptly from the forested death and grief to a suburban dawn in a quiet neighborhood. Twelve-year-old Owen Baker wakes early, finishing the last of his chores as a dog-walker. He has saved his earnings, waited on lists, and finally secures the chance to adopt a scruffy Border Terrier that he names Hubble. Owen takes the dog home, and his friendship with the neighbor Connie Flemming, a girl of similar age, becomes evident: they walk dogs together, trade stories, and share a gentle camaraderie. The neighborhood contains a range of pets Owen walks for money: a pampered Poodle named Barbara Ann, a high-energy Boxer called Wilson, an anxious Italian Greyhound named Nelly, and Connie's own Bernese Mountain Dog named Shep, who is frequently gassy. Owen's life is not carefree; he is tormented by local bullies Frankie and Fred, who taunt him at school and in the streets.

Hubble soon reveals his extraordinary nature. In the middle of a late afternoon walk Hubble speaks--not with the vocalizations of a dog but through Owen's mind--and discloses that he is not a regular canine. Hubble identifies himself with the designation Canid 3942 and explains he originates from a system called Sirius. He tells Owen that dogs on Earth have been part of a long-standing mission: to help prepare the planet for canine dominion and eventual colonization. Hubble's specific assignment comes from a powerful leader among the alien canines known as the Greater Dane, and he admits that an inspection is imminent. If the Greater Dane finds Earth dogs too integrated and domesticated--treated merely as pets--the fleet will consider recalling all canids back to Sirius and abandoning the mission.

Owen absorbs the revelation with a mixture of alarm and wonder. He begins to broaden his dog-walking routes and becomes responsible for training more of the neighborhood's animals because Hubble claims only organized, disciplined canines can pass the inspection. Owen enlists Connie to help. He and Connie attempt to teach Barbara Ann, Wilson, Nelly, and Shep to demonstrate loyalty, dexterity, endurance, and the other qualities Hubble outlines, but the dogs' habits--Barbara Ann's primness, Wilson's clownishness, Nelly's anxiety, Shep's flatulence--resist rapid change. Hubble, who alternates between moments of military precision and puppy-like affection for Owen, instructs the group on tactics and formations in a nearby field. They practice mock salutes, coordinated maneuvers, and hunting drills meant to impress an observer from the stars.

Tension rises when a bright, imposing craft from Sirius approaches. The Greater Dane herself descends to the hill where Hubble's ship once crashed and inspects the dogs. She surveys the group--Hubble, Wilson, Barbara Ann, Shep, Nelly--and sees them behaving in ways that signal domestication rather than conquest. The Greater Dane declares in a commanding voice that she is ordering a global recall: every dog on Earth must be returned to Sirius. Owen hides at the edge of the gathering and, when the Greater Dane's pronouncement stuns the crowd, Owen emerges and pleads on behalf of the animals. He explains how dogs assist and comfort humanity: they guide, warn, rescue, and love their owners in myriad, concrete ways. He recounts specific examples from his own neighborhood of meals shared, safety provided, and emotional recovery. The Greater Dane listens but does not immediately relent.

After the meeting, the dogs trail from the hill. Hubble tells Owen that the Greater Dane has agreed to let the dogs remain on Earth and that the recall will not proceed. Owen takes this assurance as truth and sleeps secure in his friendship with Hubble. During the night Hubble sneaks out of Owen's home and slips away to meet with other canines from the neighborhood. Hubble and the assembled dogs depart toward the sky, boarding or being teleported to the Greater Dane's approaching vessel. Owen wakes the next morning to find the animals gone.

Grief-stricken and desperate, Owen hurries back to the hill where Hubble's ship originally crashed and searches the wreckage. He discovers a small communicator--Hubble had called it a woofer--that Hubble left behind when he slipped away. Owen sits on the hillside, tears streaming, and repairs the device with trembling hands and pocket money. He plugs into its interface and speaks into the woofer in a voice choked with sadness and affection. Owen praises Hubble directly: he thanks him for friendship, names the ways the terrier had saved him from loneliness, and tells the dog how much he loves him. The message transmits across the stars.

On the Greater Dane's ship the woofer's signal reaches the command room. The Greater Dane and Hubble both hear Owen's words as they echo through the vessel. Hubble listens with conflicted features; the Greater Dane studies the recording and begins to ask questions about the nature of the human-canine bond. She asks Hubble whether he remains loyal to the mission or to the boy who named him Hubble instead of Canid 3942. In a halting, vulnerable exchange, Hubble asks to be called Hubble rather than his military designation. He speaks of Owen's love and of the domestic life he has come to cherish. The Greater Dane's rigid posture loosens as she considers the recording and Hubble's plea.

Meanwhile, Owen and his parents are preparing to move out of their home yet again because of financial strain and instability. Owen's mother and father appear in person in a rare family scene: Molly and Kevin--Owen's mother and father--pack boxes and argue quietly, weighed down by decisions. Owen hears a strange, otherworldly hum on the night they are about to leave and runs to the hill. From the clouds overhead Hubble's ship reappears in a flash of light. It descends rapidly and crash-lands near Owen; the craft settles in a plume of dust and leaves the crowd of gathered neighbors in stunned silence.

Dogs pour from the ship and run directly into their owners' arms. The Greater Dane stands before them and addresses the assembled humans. She pronounces that dogs from Sirius who have been on Earth long enough to have formed emotional attachments to people constitute an exceptional breed. Because of their altered behavior and their value to humans, she declares them to be a distinct category and allows them to return to their human homes. The dogs who had been taken--a number of neighborhood animals among them--reunite with their owners amid tears, laughter, and chaotic wagging tails. Hubble walks up to Owen and explains that the Greater Dane has agreed to let Earth dogs remain under one condition: Hubble will stay with the boy he loves only if he relinquishes the ship's means that allow Owen to hear canine thoughts. A bright beam of light emanates from the ship and washes over Owen; when it fades Owen discovers he can no longer hear the inner voices of dogs. He kneels and pats Hubble, who leans into him with contented compliance.

In private, on the ship's observation deck, the Greater Dane speaks to Hubble. The female leader who had been ready to order the recall now acknowledges the evidence of Owen's message and Hubble's changing allegiance. She commutes the order that would have recalled every dog from Earth; instead she returns the canines to their human families and grants Hubble permission to remain on Earth as long as the woofer and Owen's intercepting link are forfeited. Hubble relinquishes the device because he values his place beside the boy more than the surveillance and command of Sirius.

Back in the neighborhood Owen's parents decide not to move out. They watch Hubble interact with the returned dogs at a community gathering, and the family dynamic softens visibly. The dogs settle into domestic routines, and Hubble begins to build a place for himself within the local canine circle: he shares food with Barbara Ann, plays rough-and-tumble games with Wilson, comforts Nelly during a thunderstorm, and tolerates Shep's flatulence with a benign, knowing look. Connie continues to assist Owen with dog care, and the pair maintain their friendship.

Hubble, now freed from his designation Canid 3942 and accepted by the Greater Dane as simply Hubble, becomes an Earth dog who also keeps memory of the mission he once served. He remains near Owen and the neighborhood dogs, participating in walks, training, and everyday life. The Greater Dane's ship lifts back into the sky and departs, carrying with it a small contingent of canines who choose to return to Sirius. The neighborhood returns to its routine rhythms: school, dog-walking routes, and evening dinners. Owen sits on his porch with Hubble curled beside him; he scratches the dog behind the ears and speaks aloud the name he gave him. Hubble rests his head on Owen's knee and breathes steadily. The camera pulls back from the house as neighbors call their dogs in for the night, and the last scene shows Owen's family illuminated through a window as the suburban street falls quiet.

Short, Simple Narrative of the Ending

Indy, the dog, escapes the haunted house after his owner Todd collapses, but gets caught in a fox trap. Todd, now under the influence of the house's curse, punishes Indy by leashing him outside in a doghouse. The film ends with Indy alone, separated from Todd, as the supernatural threat in the house remains unresolved.

Expanded, Chronological, Scene-by-Scene Narrative of the Ending

The final act of Good Boy begins late at night, inside the grandfather's dilapidated rural home. Todd's health has deteriorated sharply; he is weak, coughing up blood, and increasingly aggressive, especially toward Indy, his loyal Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. The house is dark, lit only by the spare generator provided by the neighbor, Richard. Shadows flicker at the edges of the rooms, and Indy, attuned to the supernatural, is restless, pacing and whining, sensing the malevolent presence that Todd cannot--or will not--acknowledge.

Indy awakens from a fitful sleep to the sound of Todd moving erratically through the house. He follows Todd's scent and finds him in the hallway, slamming his head against the basement door in a trance-like state. Indy barks, trying to rouse Todd, but Todd does not respond. The camera, locked to Indy's perspective, shows the fear in the dog's body language--ears pinned back, tail tucked, eyes wide. Indy nudges Todd's leg, but Todd remains unresponsive, his breathing labored, his skin pale and clammy.

Suddenly, the dark, skeletal figure that has haunted Indy's visions materializes at the end of the hallway. Indy growls, hackles raised, but the figure advances. Todd, still dazed, collapses to the floor. The entity moves between them, and a door slams shut, separating Indy from Todd. Indy scratches and whines at the door, but it does not budge. The house seems to breathe around him, the walls creaking, the air thick with the scent of decay and something older, more sinister.

Realizing he cannot reach Todd, Indy makes a desperate decision. He races through the house, past the flickering home videos of Todd's grandfather, past the bandana he found earlier that belonged to the missing dog Bandit, and out the front door into the cold night. The camera stays low to the ground, capturing the world as Indy sees it--blurry edges, heightened sounds, the urgency of his mission. He runs through the woods, following the scent trail to Richard's house, hoping the neighbor can help.

But as Indy dashes through the underbrush, he steps into one of Richard's fox traps. The metal jaws snap shut on his leg. Indy yelps in pain, struggling to free himself as the camera shakes with his panic. The night is silent except for his whimpers and the distant call of an owl.

Morning comes. Richard discovers Indy in the trap and frees him, but instead of taking him to help Todd, Richard brings Indy back to the house. Todd, now even more altered by the curse--his eyes sunken, his movements sluggish, his voice hoarse--takes Indy from Richard. There is no relief or concern in Todd's face; instead, he is cold, distant, almost a stranger. Without a word, Todd leashes Indy to a post outside and forces him into a doghouse, shutting the wooden door behind him.

The final shot lingers on Indy, alone in the doghouse, peering out through the slats. The house looms in the background, its windows dark, its secrets unresolved. Todd does not return. The curse, it seems, has claimed him. Indy is left outside, separated from his owner, the bond between them broken by forces beyond his understanding. The film ends without resolution for the supernatural threat; the house remains, the entity unseen but ever-present, and Indy's fate is one of isolation and unanswered loyalty.

Fate of the Main Characters

• Indy: Survives the night but is physically injured by the trap. He is separated from Todd, leashed outside in a doghouse, alone and unable to help his owner further. His fate is one of survival but also profound loss, as his loyalty goes unrewarded and his efforts to save Todd fail.
• Todd: Succumbs to the curse of the house. His health and mind deteriorate until he is no longer recognizable as the man Indy knew. In the end, he abandons Indy, showing no care or recognition, and retreats into the house, presumably lost to the supernatural force.
• Richard: Plays a minor but pivotal role in the final act, discovering and freeing Indy from the trap, but ultimately returns him to Todd, unaware or unwilling to intervene further in the unfolding tragedy.
• Vera: Though she worries for Todd throughout the film, she is not present in the final scenes. Her fate is unresolved, but her absence underscores Todd's isolation and the futility of outside help.

Key Points the Movie Makes

The film emphasizes the limits of loyalty and the horror of being powerless to save someone you love. Indy's perspective--his confusion, fear, and determination--drives the narrative, highlighting how animals perceive threats that humans ignore or rationalize away. The ending refuses closure, leaving the supernatural menace intact and the human characters either lost or absent, while the dog, embodying pure devotion, is left to bear the emotional weight of the story. The house itself becomes a character, a place of inherited trauma and unseen evil, and the curse is shown as inescapable for those who enter its domain.

Yes, the 2025 movie Good Boy has two post-credit scenes. The mid-credits scene shows Indy, the dog, looking out of a car window as it drives away from the eerie woods, providing a moment of levity after the intense events of the film. The post-credits scene takes a lighter tone by offering a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, including director Ben Leonberg sharing anecdotes about how he got Indy, his own pet, to star in the movie.

These scenes do not hint at a sequel but serve to give the audience a breather and some insight into the production after the film's somber and suspenseful ending.

The 2025 movie Good Boy is not family-friendly; it is a horror film rated PG-13 for terror, bloody images, and strong language.

Potentially objectionable or upsetting content includes:

• Several frightening and tense scenes, including a dark figure attacking characters, a fight for survival, and jump scares.
• Violence and disturbing imagery such as a chain wrapped around a man's throat, repeated head trauma causing bleeding, blood dripping from a mouth, and a fall from a second-story window.
• A character suffering from a serious illness with coughing up blood and physical deterioration.
• Depictions of death and decay, including a person melting into a skeleton and references to multiple family deaths.
• Some strong language, including multiple uses of the f-word, s-word, and misuse of religious names.
• Brief nudity: a man is seen shirtless and in boxers.
• Scenes involving herbal burning rituals that might appear religious but are medicinal.

Overall, the film contains horror elements, graphic and unsettling scenes, and mature language that make it unsuitable for children or sensitive viewers.