The Christmas Shepherd continues the tradition of dogs saving Christmas on Hallmark Channel!

If it isn’t angels messing with your Christmas love live, it’s dogs! The Christmas Shepherd brings out the frisky in your pets trying to get you frisky, as a dog runs away to join another family in a complicated bid to get his owner a boyfriend. Either the dog is a mastermind, or he’s full of dumb luck and this whole plot works up independently of a secret genius canine playing games with his owners’ feelings. The latter is a much more fun scenario, so I prefer to think that Buddy the dog is having fun playing matchmaker, probably as part of a bet with those angels that play Christmas matchmaker.

If only Hallmark had a movie about an angel dog that played matchmaker with a secret prince and a normal girl. That would be the most Hallmark Christmas movie ever! Well, there’s always next year! The Christmas Shepherd is part of Hallmark’s The 12 New Movies of Christmas in the Countdown to Christmas celebration, and provides a dog alternative to the cat-themed The Nine Lives of Christmas. Hey, can we get a goldfish themed animal Christmas love movie next year? Because I want to see how that would work.

In “The Christmas Shepherd,” Sally Browning (Polo), a children’s book author and illustrator lives in a small Massachusetts town where she and her late husband, an Army vet, settled with Buddy, a German Shepherd he found while serving overseas. She is devastated, though, when her beloved Buddy runs away during a thunderstorm and ends up in an animal shelter miles from home. Mark Green (Cummins) and his teenage daughter, Emma (Olson) themselves struggling to put their lives back together after losing his wife and her mother three years ago, end up adopting the dog, who wins their hearts and heals their souls. But Sally’s journey to find Buddy eventually connects her to Mark and Emma, who must decide if they want to give up a pet who has helped make their lives whole again – and Sally has to decide if she wants to separate him from this loving pair. But wherever Buddy goes, love follows, helping to bring everyone the greatest Christmas present possible

The Christmas Shepherd stars Teri Polo (Meet the Parents) as Sally Browning, Martin Cummins (Cyberteens in Love, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan) as Mark Green, Jordyn Olson (The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story) as Emma Green, Jill Teed (Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, Godzilla) as Greta, Jody Thompson (Hellraiser: Hellseeker) as Beth, Quinn Dubois (R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour) as Jacob, Jeff C. Ballard (The Marine 3: Homefront) as Bryan, and Ace the dog as Buddy the dog!

The Christmas Shepherd is directed by Terry Ingram (Chupacabra vs. the Alamo, My Boyfriends’ Dogs) and written by Michael J. Murray (The Tree That Saved Christmas). So some quality dog and Christmas saving experience in this team!

The Christmas Shepherd premieres November 23rd on Hallmark Channel!

Photo via Hallmark Press/Bettina Strauss