Dogs doco a winning watch
EVEN those for whom man’s best friend is not a chosen buddy would have been won over by Prime’s Tuesday documentary, The Secret Life of Dogs.
The photography alone was out of this world, but new and interesting facts came thick and fast.
The evolutionary journey from the wolf through to today’s 400-odd recognised dog breeds – Canis lupus familiaris being the most physiologically diverse species of all – is endlessly fascinating, with various theories about the domestication of canines still hotly debated by scientists.
This BBC hour, narrated by The Guess List, TV One, 9.40pm. Rob Brydon and other British luminaries conduct a game show with the odd innocent member of the public getting a look-in, the exercise really a platform for oneliners and much comedic showingoff. Martin Clunes, traversed some of the remaining mysteries – such as why wolves don’t bark but dogs do – underpinning its observations with the theory that dogs have evolved to mesh in more and more harmoniously with us. The barking is for humans’ sake, not other dogs’.
Dogs actively try to communicate with us, the programme postulated – an unusual state of affairs in mammal-dom as between species. Winningly, it illustrated the extraordinary levels dog-to-human communication can reach with remarkable case studies. There was the spaniel that helped her farmer owner by bottle feeding lambs. ‘‘I’ve not taught her to do that. It’s just something she does.’’
There was the search and rescue dog that found an unconscious elderly woman in the wilderness where choppers and infrared technology had failed. Another alerted his owner to her breast cancer.
But most affectingly, a depressed, wheelchair-bound Gulf War veteran recounted how a misfit labrador had saved his life. Profoundly depressed, with severe brain injury, the suicidal Alan had been unable even to recognise his own family. Barely responsive to the world around him, he was taken to an assistance dog training facility, where he drew the attention of Endal, a disobedient young dog about to be kicked out of the course. Typically following his own agenda rather than obeying commands, Endal, unbidden, put an item in Alan’s lap and waited for praise or a reward. Frustrated by this human’s non-response, he kept bringing him things. ‘‘This was a dog who [normally] didn’t do anything for anybody. Not getting a response really hacked him off.’’