YMMV / A Dog's Way Home

• Anvilicious: The story makes no bones about how Breed Specific Legislation is both cruel and unreliable. Unsurprisingly, this earned it ire from those who support BSL.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: It's never mentioned what's wrong with Axel or whether his mental illness is due to his heroin abuse, his experiences as a soldier, or a combination of both. He's delusional and very paranoid of others. He refuses to stay in one place because he thinks people are tracking everyone, but if he's homeless then they can't track him properly. Axel suffers from frequent nightmares as well.
• Memetic Mutation: During the summer of 2022, a recap of the movie with a typo in its title made the phrase "It was a gouger" gain traction on Tumblr.
• Narm Charm: Bella's language can be simplistic, and some words are treated as phrases because she doesn't understand humans. This creates some narmy sounding lines, like "Dutch turned and started walking away from us. He was being a bad dog!" (for context, Dutch was trying to return to his previous owner and Bella considers being a "bad dog" to be a terrible offense), in otherwise serious scenes. It doesn't take away from the impact, but it is funny sounding.
• Spiritual Successor: To Cameron's previous success, A Dog's Purpose. Both are from the POV of dogs born as strays, but A Dog's Purpose stars a dog as it goes through several reincarnations, while A Dog's Way Home is more grounded in reality and focuses on one dog's life (though she still goes through many owners as she tries to get back to Lucas).