Available on DVD: “My Dog Tulip”

“Dogs read the world through their noses and write their history in urine,” wrote the British author J.R. Ackerley in his 1956 memoir My Dog Tulip, in which he examined the most fulfilling relationship of his adult life.

The book has been turned into a marvelous animated feature, full of quiet joy, honest sorrow, wisdom and a wealth of clinical detail both excremental and reproductive, all rendered in a charming style approximating the dog drawings of James Thurber. It’s not for kids, at least preteens. It is, however, for anyone over the age of 12 who has ever loved a rather difficult personality.

The book was new to me, and as the faithful adaptation proves, it is full of pearls. For example: “Unable to love each other, the English turn naturally to dogs.” Or this, spoken by Christopher Plummer, who provides the voice (and what a voice!) of Ackerley, describing why his Alsatian (or German Shepherd), Tulip, insists on waking him at least once nightly: “She wishes to reassure herself that I am not dead.”

The story emerging from the film is told chronologically but with witty, imaginative visual freedom. Adopted by the confirmed bachelor at age 18 months, Tulip had a rough start with her previous owners, who beat her and turned her into a paranoid biter. Slowly, she improves. Man and dog embark on outings together, usually fractious. Ackerley’s bossy sister (voiced by Lynn Redgrave, in her final performance) comes to live with them, with divisive results. Always we come back to Ackerley’s point of view. Tulip, he says, “offered me what I had never found in my life with humans: Constant, single-hearted, incorruptible, uncritical devotion.”

Directors and animators Paul Fierlinger and Sandra Fierlinger are no less devoted to Ackerley. Their computer-generated but recognizably hand-made drawings (more than 58,000 in all) roam stylistically from black-and-white backgrounds, with lots of white space and room for fantasy, to fuller, more detailed full-color landscapes of London, Ackerley’s Putney flat, or a seaside vacation.

The whole thing’s wrapped up in a choice musical score, ranging from jazz to classical, by John Avarese. Your tear ducts will not be subjected to the sort of pummeling a dog movie such as Marley & Me or My Dog Skip favors. Nonetheless My Dog Tulip is extremely moving, exceedingly droll, flawlessly voice-acted and the nicest possible way to spend an evening at home, especially if you have a devoted dog, like a golden retriever named Ginger, by your side.