What the Dickens is happening to wildlife television? At the back end of all those Atttenborough films they have a segment in which they explain how they got the miracle money shot of the chorus line of orcas, the war ballet of the giraffes, the Saharan ant colony. Well, forget all that. Television appears to have decreed that, wildlife-wise, pets are the new black.
Earlier this year Horizon aired an underwhelming film about what cats get up to when you’re not looking. Answer: exactly what you’d expect. Before that it did one on dogs, explaining through the wonders of science how human they are. The Secret Life of Dogs is not to be confused with Dogs: Their Secret Lives which went out last night on Channel 4. This was a considered film about what dogs get up to when you’re not looking. Answer: your worst, tear-jerking nightmare. There are eight million dogs in the UK, and if the random sample tested here are any guide, around seven million of them show signs of panic, fear and frustration when their owners leave the house. We know this because a wall-mounted camera never lies.
Everyone talked politely about toileting. Which is not a word
Viewers were subjected to a series of horribly upsetting images – if you were the owner, that is – as dogs with prep-school names like Bruno and Oscar and Pip howled for hours on end until the boss got back. The neighbours had been telling them for years, but the power of television finally convinced them that yes, when out of sight their unimpeachable pooches really do go out of their minds and set off a fearful racket for hours upon end. A presenter with eyes like a St Bernard nodded with concern. “He wants his mum,” he said. The last time one read a zoology manual humans were not capable of giving birth to puppies, but you live and learn.
A whole battalion of dog professors and dog communications scientists and dog shrinks, quite a few of them cuddly bottle blondes, were on hand. Pioneers in labs measured cortisol levels and assessed infrared images measuring ear temperature and everyone talked politely about toileting. Which is not a word. Unless you train a dog to cope with solitude, someone sensibly said, you are condemning it to a lifetime of misery. All the dogs with issues were male, curiously. Nobody mentioned that.
