The only reason I did not give this a 1 is because I'm sure the bottom end of the target audience, kids up to maybe 5 years old, will like it. However, this movie was truly horrible. I think the problem rests on the poor acting of the children/young adults and the script. I'm 99% certain the script writers were told "we want to do a movie where there is a hotel for dogs, make it work somehow." Spoilers follow, none of much consequence. The opening of the movie, with two white kids in a foster home ripping off a store owner with a box containing a rock instead of a cell phone because they want to buy some burgers for their dog, is the first blow to the movie's credibility. What kind of morals does that teach, first of all? Also, these kids look way too healthy, happy, and affluent to warrant stealing for petty money. So they don't like the dinner their foster mom makes them, so their dog is a stray after 3 years because these kids are irresponsible, so what? The acting is incredibly bad, the characters about as stereotypical as possible - It's Nickelodeon, what else should we expect? If they had worse foster parents, or at least demonstrated being more distraught and emotionally damaged from their parents dying, I'd forgive the stupid stealing bit. The kids act like snobby self-righteous brats throughout the entire film. It basically teaches kids that you can act however you want if you think your mom and dad don't pay enough attention and cook like crap, and that even if you are perfectly well off it is fine to break the law for petty cash.
If you are a dog lover, and a serious one (moderate dog lovers won't love the dogs enough to get past story and acting flaws), then you may enjoy the bits where the dogs act cute. Other than that, I had perfectly acceptable expectations of a KID'S movie about dogs, and they were clearly far too high... If the kids are old enough to see this by themselves, they won't like this movie. If you're stuck taking them, see a movie in a different theater. If they're too young to be unsupervised in front of a screen for an hour and forty minutes, get a dog lover friend to take them.
If you are a dog lover, and a serious one (moderate dog lovers won't love the dogs enough to get past story and acting flaws), then you may enjoy the bits where the dogs act cute. Other than that, I had perfectly acceptable expectations of a KID'S movie about dogs, and they were clearly far too high... If the kids are old enough to see this by themselves, they won't like this movie. If you're stuck taking them, see a movie in a different theater. If they're too young to be unsupervised in front of a screen for an hour and forty minutes, get a dog lover friend to take them.