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My 12 year old daughter has been looking forward to watching this show for weeks. She’s a huge dog lover, watching every dog show she can find on Animal Planet, watching every movie she can about dogs, having 101 Dalmatians on her walls, etc. You get the picture. So when she heard about the new show Greatest American Dog coming soon to CBS, she began starting the countdown.

After watching two episodes of the show now, I have to say I’m completely drawn in. It’s like a combination of Big Brother and Survivor (not surprisingly, since it’s on CBS), yet with dogs. The contestants on this reality show are really the owners, but it all comes down to how they relate with their dogs. Despite being a huge animal lover myself, I have to admit I see some of these owners as a bit extreme, then again, that makes it pretty much like any other reality show, doesn’t it?

The breeds featured on this show range from mutts to pomeranians, giant schnauzers to miniature schnauzers, and jack russel terriers to brittanys. The owners range from those with family dogs, to those with companion dogs, to those with dogs they dress up like children. Each week they have different challenges to go through, and like Big Brother, one owner and dog get to live in a pampered suite each week while the others are in normal digs. One owner and dog have to live in the doghouse each week, similar to Exile Island on Survivor.

Like Big Brother and Survivor, the game here is really how everyone relates to each other. In this case, though, it’s how the owners relate to the other owners and how the dogs relate to the other dogs. Those relationships came into play this week. The jack russel attacked the english bull dog, biting him in the eye, and the jack russel’s owner wouldn’t accept responsibility for this, despite the pleas of the bull dog’s owner and the others.

In another situation, the owner of the giant schnauzer had a hard time controlling her dog without yelling loudly at her, which is problematic as it interrupts the training of the other dogs, making the game also how owners relate to their dogs. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we had the brittany get bitten or scratched badly by something, requiring her owner to rush her to emergency veterinary care. She survived, but the blood and tears made it a little hard to watch at times.

The judges of Greatest American Dog include an outspoken Brit, just like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. Victorial Stilwell, host of It’s Me or the Dog shared her concerns of the giant schnauzer with her owner. She didn’t like the way she was being treated with the shouting and over-correction, and while the owner tried to give her a taste of her own medicine, Stilwell corrected her in the same loud, abrupt fashion. Not to be outdone, her fellow judge, Wendy Diamond, founder and editor-in-chief of Animal Fair, had stern words for the owner of the mutt, reprimanding her for dressing up her dog, saying it’s hard to judge grooming this way, and it’s also hard for the dogs to communicate with each other, not having all of their body open to view.

In the end, the judges decided to let the loud owner of the giant schnauzer go over the dressed-up mutt, surprising after the mutt’s owner talked back to Diamond, defending her right to dress up her dog, saying she can’t groom her to be a certain way anyway because she’s only a mutt. What kind of a dog lover is this that looks down on her own dog’s looks and covers it up with clothing? Regardless, she and her mutt stayed, while the other owner couldn’t even stop loudly correcting her dog even in her exit interview.

Clearly neither of these owners are relating to their dogs in a totally appropriate fashion. And like the other CBS reality shows, it’s that failure to relate well that caused or will cause them to be eliminated from the show. It may be the dogs themselves that get my daughter and me, as well as others to tune into the show, but it’s the way the owners relate to their dogs and each other that keeps us coming back.

Photos courtesy of cbs.com

For more information on Greatest American Dog, see SirLinksalot: Greatest American Dog.

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