Animals, Pets In Media Television; HBO Dog Shelter Adoption | Global Animal

Summer TV Goes To The Dogs

June 2, 2012 Carmen Iben



(ANIMAL TV) NEW YORK — Big TV networks have finally decided to get involved and acknowledge that over half of Americans act as guardians to at least one pet.

Three radically different shows revolving around dogs will start this summer and show just how much animals have become a significant part of our everyday lives. While one CBS show focuses on the point that there is a lot of work that goes into being a good pet guardian, a film on PBS stresses the benefits of adopting from a dog shelter. Another show on HBO encourages dog adoption, but takes a much different approach. Read on for more of this summer’s canine-oriented TV, and how the media could direct the conversation about pets in a positive direction. — Global Animal

Justin Silver, who consults with urban dog owners on CBS’s new series “Dogs in the City.” Photo credit: Heather Wines/CBS

New York Times, Neil Genzlinger

Dogs are having a television moment, with three very different programs about them turning up in the next few weeks on three very different outlets. Together they provide a dizzying display of reprehensible behavior, inordinate neediness and striking devotion. By humans.

CBS brings its version of dog whispering to prime time on Wednesday night with a series called “Dogs in the City,” which features a personable young man named Justin Silver, who has a keen sense of what is going on inside the canine head. There are other dog behaviorist shows, of course; this one’s gimmick is that all of its dogs are in New York City.

Do you have to be crazy to own a dog in a heavily paved, exceedingly crowded place like New York? Apparently not, because, Mr. Silver says, one out of eight New Yorkers owns a dog;  problems are usually in the owner, not the animal.

 “Shelter Me,” a film by Steven Latham that is showing on PBS stations in May and June . “Shelter Me” is single-minded in its goal: It wants people to consider adopting a dog from a shelter.

Shelters, the program says, are overwhelmed with animals, especially now, when people are abandoning pets in a bad economy. 

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says that is the fate of three million to four million dogs and cats each year. 

 

The film is so eager for people to adopt dogs that it doesn’t address its own contradiction: that shelters are jammed partly because not everyone can be a successful owner. 

A more nuanced approach is used in “One Nation Under Dog,” a riveting film showing June 18 on HBO.

This film also encourages dog adoption, but the first of several factoids it displays on the screen is this: “There are 4.7 million dog bite victims each year in the U.S.” 


The film grows even more stark, showing hard-to-watch footage of shelter dogs being thrown into large bins and gassed, then even harder-to-watch images from a raid on a wretched puppy mill in Tennessee.

 

Read More New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/arts/television/dogs-on-tv-beyond-the-whispering.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss 

Animals, Pets In Media Television; HBO Dog Shelter Adoption | Global Animal

 LINK:  http://www.globalanimal.org/2012/06/02/summer-tv-goes-to-the-dogs/75441/