I think on the whole, it was positive. It showed the range of dogs that come into rescue (they had an Afghan Hound and a selection of appealing mongrels of all sizes), it showed that if they'd come in because of problems, these were largely fixable by non-experts, with a little effort and professional advice, and most of the training shown was very positive and 'best practice'.
A major problem for dog rescue is that people don't want a rescue dog because they think the sort of dog they want will not be in rescue, or that rescue dogs will be broken, so they buy a puppy from a breeder (not realising that looking after a pup is often much more difficult!) It was a very good program from that point of view.
It was sad that some of the dogs bonded with their celebrity trainers, but not all the celebrities were in a position to adopt a dog, so that bond was broken at the end of the filming. But this is something that happens to a rescue dog if it goes into foster anyway. And several of the celebrities did end up adopting the dogs, which is a nice role model to have on the telly, and all the other dogs were adopted by an eager public: the Dogs Trust will be doing followup checks and I am sure they interviewed all applicants pretty stringently too.
Of of the dogs involved, one (Casper) I think was a poor choice to go on the show, as the poor beast had quite a lot of issues and looked a bit stressed, but the rest of them seemed to be having a whale of a time.
Perhaps the most questionable thing about it was that all the cash raised went to Children in Need, not the Dogs Trust, which supplied the dogs, or any other dog charity. Apparently the original plan had been for each celebrity to name a charity, which would have been mostly dog charities, but then there was the big fuss about phone-in corruption, and the BBC for mysterious reasons decided that the only way to avoid more scandal was to give everything to CIN.
no subject
A major problem for dog rescue is that people don't want a rescue dog because they think the sort of dog they want will not be in rescue, or that rescue dogs will be broken, so they buy a puppy from a breeder (not realising that looking after a pup is often much more difficult!) It was a very good program from that point of view.
It was sad that some of the dogs bonded with their celebrity trainers, but not all the celebrities were in a position to adopt a dog, so that bond was broken at the end of the filming. But this is something that happens to a rescue dog if it goes into foster anyway. And several of the celebrities did end up adopting the dogs, which is a nice role model to have on the telly, and all the other dogs were adopted by an eager public: the Dogs Trust will be doing followup checks and I am sure they interviewed all applicants pretty stringently too.
Of of the dogs involved, one (Casper) I think was a poor choice to go on the show, as the poor beast had quite a lot of issues and looked a bit stressed, but the rest of them seemed to be having a whale of a time.
Perhaps the most questionable thing about it was that all the cash raised went to Children in Need, not the Dogs Trust, which supplied the dogs, or any other dog charity. Apparently the original plan had been for each celebrity to name a charity, which would have been mostly dog charities, but then there was the big fuss about phone-in corruption, and the BBC for mysterious reasons decided that the only way to avoid more scandal was to give everything to CIN.