Good Boy ending explained: The real horrors inside a dog's mind

In the genre of horror, few films have dared to go where Ben Leonberg's Good Boy has taken its audience. Following Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever who navigates through the eerie happenings in his owner's new home, the film gives a sharp shift to a genre that has seen multiple successful entries this year. Unlike most horror films that use pet dogs as passing characters who die in the first half, Good Boy takes things in another direction as the supernatural forces intensify and Indy discovers that some threats are more personal than normal.

Good Boy ends on a both heart-wrenching and haunting note as Indy faces not just a malevolent entity, but also the inevitability of death as it swallows his surroundings. Here's what happens at the end of Good Boy, and the million-dollar question's answer: Does Indy die?

What is Good Boy about?

Still from Good Boy (Image via IFC Films)

The story starts with Todd, who has left the endless noise of New York City to settle in silence in his late grandfather's creaky house in the woods. Driven by his illness as his lungs betray him and the doctor advises him to rest, he cozies up in the house in the woods, unaware of everything that awaits him. Our first hint about the place holding something haunting is how his sister Vera, begs him not to go to the house. She tells him it was cursed or haunted, or at least heavy with the same grief that killed their grandfather. Todd, of course, pays no attention.

Todd and Indy don't do much except clean up and watch old videos of his grandfather and his dog, Bandit. He also constantly talks to his sister Vera, who tells him of how dogs have supernatural senses and can see things humans can't.

As things start shifting, Indy, Todd's loyal dog, is the first one to notice it. Shadows moving on their own, faint sounds of breathing, and oftentimes a black figure that haunts the surroundings. On the outside, the woods aren't any safer either, as they meet Richard, a grizzled neighbor who warns them of fox traps scattered across the property. He mentions that it was he who had discovered Todd's grandfather many years back, and soon enough, Bandit also disappeared.

Indy then begins to see him, the ghost of Bandit, his form translucent and trembling, leading him through the narrow corridors of the house until he stops before an old wardrobe. Beneath it lay a forgotten bandana, once tied around Bandit’s neck, now stiff with dust. From then on, Indy starts having nightmares of Todd's grandfather dying and a dark figure who seemingly caused it.

On the other hand, Todd's health worsens as his coughing turns bloody and his temper gets worse. One night, Indy finds Todd slamming his head against the basement door. The black figure returns, and as Indy runs from him, he gets caught in one of Richard's traps. Angry, Todd chains him outside and makes him sleep in a doghouse. But even from the doghouse, Indy could feel it; the darkness had finally found its way in.

How Good Boy ends on a darker note

Night falls heavily on the woods, and the house begins to breathe again. Indy sits chained outside, his ears twitching at the sound of Todd’s coughing from the upstairs bedroom. The darkness isn’t still anymore; it shifts, takes shape, and lunges toward him. Instinct takes over. Indy crashes into his doghouse, snapping the chain loose as the structure collapses. Free, he bolts toward the cellar, its door mysteriously ajar..

Inside, the air reeks of rot. Indy finds what remains of Bandit, the old golden retriever. The truth, whatever it is, sits heavy in the silence. Upstairs, Todd gasps for air as the figure glides closer. His reflection stares back at him from the bed as he sees his own lifeless body. In that moment of clarity, it is clear that he had already died. Indy bounds into the room just as Todd’s spirit is dragged toward the basement, the dark figure hauling him through corridors that stretch into nothingness.

Indy follows, desperate, slipping through shadows and muck. Todd looks back one last time, as he tells him, "You're a good dog, but you have to let me go." He is then swallowed whole by the darkness, as Indy is left behind.

As morning arrives, Todd's sister Vera, finds Todd’s body, pale and still. Outside, Indy waits at the mouth of the cellar, unmoving. When she calls his name, he hesitates, then climbs the steps toward her, leaving the darkness behind.

What is the dark shadow that haunts Todd and Indy in Good Boy?

As the film ends, you realize that Good Boy is less about a monovalent ghost and more about the real horrors of a disease. The shadow that stalks their home isn't explained in the film, and the film refuses to label it. Is it a ghost? A curse? Something sinister? Or is it death itself? The film lets these questions linger. But even the ambiguous ending leaves hints for what the entity must have been.

Maybe the “entity” exists only through Indy’s eyes. Maybe it’s how a dog imagines death: a shapeless shadow that comes to take away the person he loves. To Indy, it’s not evil, only inevitable. It doesn’t hurt him, it just pulls Todd somewhere he can’t follow. What Good Boy hides beneath its ghost story is a portrait of decay, of a man consumed by illness, and a dog who cannot understand death, only absence. The entity that haunts the house is less a monster and more a metaphor: the physical form of Todd’s disease, devouring him the same way it did his grandfather. To Indy, it’s all the same, the slow vanishing of someone he loves, and the quiet acceptance that follows.

Good Boy also shows a sharp contrast between the two dogs featured in the film. The previous dog, Bandit, stayed in the house and died because he never understood that his owner was gone. Indy, in contrast, learns to let go; he goes back to Vera and, in a sense, he understands that Todd has left. It’s the moment the film’s metaphor blooms: death may take Todd, but it doesn’t have to take the living with it. By allowing Indy to survive, director Ben Leonberg breaks horror tradition. The dog doesn’t die for shock value; he endures. Good Boy ends not with terror, but with something rarer, grief that finally learns to breathe.