SALON

Tuesday, May 29, 2012 5:20 PM UTC

TV cameras trained on dogs during summer 2012

By

Topics: From the Wires,

TV cameras trained on dogs during summer 2012This undated image released by CBS shows dog guru Justin Silver, host of the new show "Dogs in the City," kissing a dog in New York. Every Wednesday beginning May 30, Silver will try to help New York City hounds and humans tackle unsettling problems like joint custody after divorce or dealing with significant others who just moved in. (AP Photo/CBS, Heather Wines)(Credit: AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Summer television used to mean reruns. This year it’s gone to the dogs.

Several new shows star dogs and their owners in need of help. CBS has the lone network show in “Dogs in the City,” starring comic, dog trainer and businessman Justin Silver. It’s joined by documentaries on PBS and HBO and a series in the works for the Disney Channel, among others.

Each Wednesday at 8 p.m., beginning May 30, Silver will try to help hound and human tackle unsettling problems like joint custody after divorce or dealing with significant others who just moved in.

Is man or mutt usually to blame for problems? It’s 50-50, he said, but “a dog’s behavior is shaped by the people in its life.”

Silver says he won’t be the one solving problems, even though he jokes that he speaks dog. Instead he will provide techniques and experiences so owners can fix their own problems.

“It’s that old adage: Give a man a fish and you’ll fill his belly. Teach him how to fish and he’ll never starve. I am teaching you how to fish. But no one learns how to fish perfectly in one hour. It takes constant practice.”

If intervention is needed, he will call on his own pit bulls, Chiquita and Pacino. “I use my dogs as much as possible because the thing that influences dogs most is other balanced dogs,” he said.

“Dogs in the City” seems to have a lot in common with “The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” on the National Geographic Channel and “It’s Me or the Dog” with Victoria Stilwell on Animal Planet. “Bad Dog!” is another Animal Planet show, although it uses videotape to capture misbehavior in a test of sorts to see how far an owner’s love will stretch.

Documentaries airing in May and June explore the rewards and redemption of shelter dogs. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says between 5 million and 7 million companion animals enter shelters every year and between 3 million and 4 million of them are euthanized.

“Shelter Me,” a PBS documentary, is narrated by actress Katherine Heigl and is sponsored by the pet food company co-owned by Ellen DeGeneres.

It follows an animal control officer, adoption workers, female inmates who train rescue dogs, and vets who acquire former shelter dogs.

“‘Shelter Me’ is about the lives that are changed when shelter pets are given a second chance,” Heigl said.

Andrew J. Trotto, an Army veteran from Mission Viejo, was teamed up with Teka, a black Lab rescued from a Wyoming shelter by Freedom Service Dogs in Englewood, Colo.

“If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead right now,” Trotto says in the film.

“I was an evil person. I hated you or wanted to kill you,” he said, describing the PTSD demons that haunted him. “People say suicide is selfish. But when you are in the zone, you’re not thinking about that. The terror in your head drives you insane. She (Teka) will wake me up out of my night terrors.”

“Shelter Me” will air across the country in late May and June.

HBO will premiere a documentary called “One Nation Under Dog: Stories of Fear, Loss & Betrayal” on June 18 at 9 p.m.

The film looks at America’s obsession with dogs, how far individuals will go for their pets and what it will take for people across the country to treat all dogs humanely.

The 73-minute documentary looks at the odds stacked against shelter dogs, spay and neuter education, puppy mills, dog bite victims and how some owners respond when their dog attacks.

The Disney Channel also has a new dog show in the works for the fall and while it does involve a rescue dog, that’s where reality ends.

The live-action, multi-camera series called “Dog With A Blog” and revolves around a dog named Stan (who is really a 4-year-old named Kuma).

In real life, Kuma is a husky, golden retriever and border collie mix who was rescued from a shelter. In the show, he is adopted to tame a pair of feuding stepbrothers. Turns out Stan can read, write and blog.

More Sue Manning.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations