This was so much fun! I played through the whole game and wanted more at the end :D The character felt great to control, and the enemies were fair. I loved the way you did your check point system. Each time you respawned at the same location, but because certain doors stayed open or because you retained certain abilities, you could just skip the parts you had already done. This was really good!
I also wonder why you have this option to skip the story? I don't think there was a lot of story to go through, and talking to most of the people in the town is completely optional. Having this option made me afraid that there would be a massive lore dump, but that was not the case at all.
I think the puzzles were designed very well. During the combat I sometimes felt like I took undeserved damage (especially during the boss) because of the size of the hitbox. You have this diagonally top-down look, so to me it feels I should be able to walk behind the enemy sprite a little bit without problem. However, as soon as I touched the sprite I took damage. But this is just a tiny little detail though, and might also just be me :)
I ran into the same bug ass kiddolink where a dialogue box is stuck in the screen until I change rooms. However for me it happened with the dog that told me how to dig.
Finally, I also really loved the looks of the game. The dogs were really cute, and everything was also very clear gameplay wise. The animations also looked smooth and worked really well. All in all an amazing job with this game! I really enjoyed playing it :D Thanks a lot for making it and submitting it to the jam!