Summary

Amores Perros is a film about love, human connection, dogs, and the way that all of these already complex issues are made far more difficult by financial stress.

Act 1: Octavio and Susana

The film follows three separate, but interconnected stories. The first, Octavio and Susana, follow a household in which the youngest son finds himself in love with his brother's wife. Octavio's brother and Susana's husband, Ramiro, is an abusive and erratic petty criminal who works as a grocery cashier by day. Upon discovering that Susana is pregnant, Octavia resolves to get her an abortion and take her away to a life together. Octavio takes the family dog, Cofi, who is discovered to be a natural-born fighter, to win money in dog fights that will fulfill his dreams.

Their relationship is complicated by Susana's desire to be loyal to her husband, Octavia's inability to understand boundaries, and a dog-fighting rival who has little interest in losing fairly. After their final fight, where Joracho shoots Cofi after another loss, Octavio discovers that Susana and Ramiro have disappeared after he was mugged by friends of Octavio. Octavio's dog-fighting rival, Jarocho, catches up to Octavio and his friend and chases them into a severe car accident that serves as the point of intersection for all three stories.

Act 2:Daniel and Valeria

Act 2 follows Daniel, an unhappily married magazine editor and Valeria, a celebrity engaged in a sham PR relationship for her career. The two are carrying on an affair when it is revealed that Daniel has bought a house for the two of them and is leaving his wife for good. Valeria and her treasured dog tragically are involved in the car accident, leaving her scarred and broken for life. Due to not having the money to fix a whole in the floor, Richie disappears into the floorboards and their relationship is tested to its worst limits as the couple's emotional and physical recoveries do not go as planned. Valeria eventually loses her leg and modeling gig, leaving her and Daniel to a fight that seems to be the end of their relationship; until Richie is found under the floorboards, uneaten by rats and mostly okay. As they rediscovger their pet, they reconnect with what brought them together and their story ends holding hands and staring into the distance.

Act 3: El Chivo and Maru

The film's final narrative arc explores the life of a wandering vagrant who has appeared several times in others stories. An ex-felon and ex-guerilla fighter, he is an outcast from society. El Chivo survives by digging through the trash and taking care of his pack of mangy dogs. He also lends his skills to the cop who caught him as a hitman. It is later discovered that the woman he has been following is the daughter he walked out on, and he is trying to amass a generous sum of money to give her. He meets the other plots when preparing to take out his target, the car crash happens mere feet behind him. After stealing a number of valuables from the car, he also saves the prize-fighting dog who had been shot following his latest win.
He takes the injured dog back to the abandoned building he lives in and brings it back to health. Much like El Chivo himself, the dog cannot help but kill all of the other dogs when he is rested back, and this sets El Chivo to finally reveal himself to his daughter, doing so with a photo-album and all the money he's collected as a Hitman. Before he follows through, he captures both his target and the man who hired him, and leaves them to settle their differences over a handgun.