Dug's Special Mission

Dug's Special Mission is a short animated film from Pixar running about five minutes. It follows Dug, the talking dog, on his birthday, a day that quickly goes wrong when he interferes with a hunt being led by the pack's leader, Alpha, and his two helpers, Beta and Gamma. To keep him out of the way while they search for the Bird of Paradise Falls on their own, Alpha sends Dug off on a series of pointless assignments. Dug's attempts to carry them out go badly, and through these misadventures he comes to understand where he truly belongs. The story serves as a prelude to the feature Up, showing how Dug first crossed paths with Carl Fredricksen and Russell.

Ronnie del Carmen directed and wrote the short, with Galyn Susman producing. Bob Peterson voices both Dug and Alpha, while Delroy Lindo and Jerome Ranft voice Beta and Gamma; Ed Asner and Jordan Nagai appear briefly as Carl and Russell. The film was released in late 2009, the same year as Up.

On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.9 from around 8,100 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7 out of 464 votes. The two audience scores are close, showing a generally favourable response, though the limited vote counts reflect the short's status as a companion piece rather than a standalone feature.