Thor Freudenthal ignores the advice about working with children and animals to direct this family-oriented tale of two enterprising orphans, whose enduring love for their four-legged friends sparks a magical adventure.

The premise is barking mad and the scriptwriters unleash themselves from reality early on but there is a sweetness and innocence to the film, which proves charming.

Andi (Emma Roberts) and her younger brother Bruce (Jake T Austin) have passed from one foster home to the next, eventually landing up with musicians Carl and Lois Scudder (Kevin Dillon and Lisa Kudrow), who care more about rehearsals than feeding two brats.

So Andi and Bruce learn to take care of themselves, concealing their Jack Russell terrier Friday from the animal-hating Scudders.

During an altercation with local police, the siblings seek shelter in an abandoned hotel, which turns out to be home for two strays: a Bull Mastiff called Lenny and a nervous Boston Terrier called Georgia.

Friday takes a shine to the homeless duo and Andi and Bruce hit upon a novel idea: to employ the boy’s knack for inventions to transform the disused building into a sanctuary for all strays in the city, thereby saving the animals from a trip to the pound and possible extermination.

Pet store workers Dave (Johnny Simmons) and Heather (Kyla Pratt), and bored local kid Mark (Troy Gentile) lend helping hands and soon the streets are completely clear of animals, all living and pooping in perfect harmony in the hotel.

However, Andi, Bruce and the gang can’t keep the hotel secret forever and when the soon-to-be-unemployed dogcatchers grow suspicious, the kids risk their own futures to save the animals, to the dismay of caring social worker, Bernie (Don Cheadle).

Hotel For Dogs is cute and undemanding, engineering a happy ever after for the two diminutive heroes, who have suffered at the hands of an unwieldy care system.

Roberts and Austin are perkiness personified while Kudrow and Dillon embrace their unwritten roles as villains in the Roald Dahl mould.

However, the stars of the show are the animal performers and the array of zany gadgets, apparently designed and engineered by Bruce to cater to every canine fancy.

There are electric sheep to hone a collie’s herding skills, a vending machine filled with shoes for dogs who like to masticate and a dinner table delivery system based around a toy train set.

The tyke even devises a specially modified hydrant in the shower room, which washes clean every time one of the residents cocks a leg.