Synopsis

“Guilty by Breed” tells the story of Charlotte, a headstrong and naïve 18 year old from the country who moves to a large city for college and brings her faithful dog, Danny, with her. Not knowing what to do with her life or what to think of the vast array of people she meets in her new urban home, she struggles to fit in: especially after Danny, through no fault of his own, is forcefully seized by local authorities for being an “illegal breed” and scheduled to be euthanized. With the help of a stenographer named Jenny, Charlotte must now try to save her dog’s life by legally challenging the unjust laws that would have him killed while at the same time balance her schoolwork, battle her uneasiness of all people different from her, and learn the ebb and flow of the city. Charlotte witnesses the rampant racial tensions between the local law enforcement and the multi-ethnic citizens of her neighborhood and sees first hand that judging any person or dog by the way they look is ignorant and can have dangerous consequences. “Guilty by Breed” is a coming of age story where country meets city, a beautiful tale of a girl’s love for her dog, and a gritty drama that deals with the atrocities and injustice of social and ethnic profiling and how relates to both humans and canines alike.