Fluke

A mutt puppy who has flashing memories and dreams of having lived a human life is taken to a pound and eventually escapes. He is raised by an elderly homeless woman named Bella, who gives him the name Fluke, stating that he is a "fluke by nature, Fluke by name." Fluke supports Bella by helping her earn money from passing strangers, who are impressed with Fluke's ability to beat Bella's shell game. After Bella dies of an illness, Fluke meets a street-wise dog named Rumbo who takes him to see a man named Bert who feeds them. Fluke matures into an adult dog and eventually realizes that he was once a man named Thomas P. Johnson, who died in a car crash. Fluke is abducted by a man named Sylvester to be used in makeup experiments at a cosmetics company. During his captivity, Rumbo comes to the rescue, but is shot by Sylvester as he and Fluke escape. A dying Rumbo tells Fluke that the black-and-white snapshot of a man in a sailor suit on Bert's wall was him and Bert was his brother, suggesting that he died in the line of duty. After Rumbo's death, Fluke seeks out his surviving wife Carol and son Brian and reunites with them by becoming their new family dog. Though Carol is apprehensive about adopting Fluke, she caves in, seeing how Brian has quickly bonded with Fluke. As more memories return, Fluke suspects that his human death was caused by his former business partner, Jeff Newman. Enraged by this and that Jeff is now dating Carol, Fluke viciously attacks him when he visits the house, and ends up getting put outside. Jeff calls for Animal Control against the protests of Brian, and Fluke is forced to run from the premises. The next night, Brian goes missing while looking for Fluke and Carol implores Jeff to help, so Jeff drives back to their house. Fluke, hiding in the backseat of Jeff's car, comes close to killing Jeff by causing him to get into a car accident like his own. Fluke then has another flashback and realizes that Jeff wasn't responsible for his death. Instead, Fluke had caused his own death when he recklessly drove on the wrong side of the road just to argue with Jeff one night and swerved off to avoid hitting an oncoming truck. Jeff then tried to save him, but failed. An injured Jeff, implied to have realized Fluke's true identity but bearing no ill will, tells Fluke to go find Brian before the latter catches hypothermia from the falling snow. Regretful over his actions, Fluke barks for a passing driver to help Jeff before running off. On a hunch, Fluke goes to the graveyard where he had been buried and finds Brian there, who had been locked in by an unaware groundskeeper. Fluke huddles with Brian to keep him warm. Carol, deducing from one of Brian's drawings where he may have gone, uses her car to break open the cemetery gates and picks up Brian. Carol tries to coax Fluke to come home with them. Instead, Fluke digs away at the snow in front of his tombstone to show Carol who he really is by uncovering the word "forever" at the bottom, a phrase he often said to her as a human. Carol is left speechless and lets Fluke leave without objection. With a heavy heart, Fluke departs and entrusts his family to Jeff for their happiness. He monologues that he finally accepted that he can no longer be the family man he should have been, and that he should cherish the life he has now. Sometime later, Fluke is reunited with Rumbo, now reincarnated as a squirrel. Rumbo tells Fluke about life as a squirrel and about reincarnation.