Stephen Irwin "Black Dog's Progress" animation

I got the flu for the first time. Never again will I say things like "Oh, I think I'm coming down with the flu..." when all I have is a bad cold. So I spent the next week in bed and found this on "Animate TV" on the channel 4 on Demand website (I was watching Ugly Betty...).

above: still taken from "black dog's progress" by Stephen Irwin.

If the animation doesn't work above, here is the link to "animate projects". I recommend watching it on full screen.
http://www.animateprojects.org/films/by_date/films_2008/black_dog?hd=true

First of all, I'm always impressed by flip-book style animations, probably because I don't have the patience to make them myself. This animation is put together from a number of separate flip animation "chapters" that accumulate to tell the whole story.

I think there are many elements of this animation that make it so powerful. The format that I mentioned above, the aggressive drawing style that contrast the characters (they could have been cute), the eerie folk-like music... and do you not think the loops make the whole thing even more pitiful and sad?

There isn't a happy ending for the black dog but there is something uplifting about stumbling across something really good....