With background music that is two parts “Sex and the City,” and one part “Survivor,” CBS’ new series, “Dogs in the City,” sounds at first like yet another version of Carrie and friends.
Well, it does until you hear the barking, that is. Then you realize that this is not about sex kittens but about dogs — of the canine variety.
And with its handsome NYC dog trainer Justin Silver leading the pack of hapless dog owners, “Dogs in the City” is perfect summer fluff for city dog owners.
Astoundingly, there are 1.5 million dogs in this city and one out of every eight New Yorkers owns a dog and there are 80 million dogs nationwide.
Talk about smart, built-in TV programming.
No, “Dogs in the City” isn’t the cure for cancer, and there’s nothing here that you haven’t already seen Cesar Milan do on “The Dog Whisperer” — and do more effectively, in many cases.
But instead of Milan’s California base and his travels around the county, we have a Queens guy, Silver, traveling the five boroughs.
The premise is even the same: There are no bad dogs, just clueless people.
That being said, Silver does manage to bring a friendly hipster mentality, (I know, an oxymoron) to dog training. The cases are endlessly interesting — for dog people.
On Wednesday night’s premiere, Silver tackles three cases.
There’s a spoiled celbrity dog that hates that his “dad” got hitched.
The second case is that of the aggressive dog of an equally aggressive owner who brings the angry dog to work.
The third is the dog of a retired NYC fireman and his 9-year-old daughter. They are worried that their Bernese Mountain dog is too fat.
Unless you live in a cave and make pipe bombs all day, you’ve know the first dog, skateboarding Beefy the bulldog, the YouTube sensation. Who doesn’t love that?
Oh, wait, I know, Beefy’s new “mom,” that’s who. It’s not that she doesn’t love Beefy and Beefy’s “dad” but Beefy is not at all happy that Dad got married. She’s not only taken his place in Dad’s bed, but she walks him (Beefy that is) whenever she likes.
So Beefy refuses to walk — let alone skateboard — with the new stepmom. He also thinks it’s a swell idea to start barking at their bedside most mornings at 3 a.m.
Next up is Elli, a model casting agent and her dog, Charlotte, a big biter.
When asked how often Charlotte has bitten people, Elli replies “Are you counting blood bites and non blood bites?”
When Silver suggests that Elli is more concerned about Charlotte than she is about her clients’ welfare, she says, “I’m definitely concerned about them. God forbid one of the models [whose faces are their fortunes] gets permanently scarred or something! If it were me, that would definitely bother me.”
Yes, permanently scarring a model’s face and wrecking her career, can be so irritating!
Finally, there is the retired fireman and his daughter. While no one mentions a mother or what could have happened to her, the fireman and his daughter are beside themselves with worry about their dog.
Justin steps in to each situation to resolve them. The segments are not as detailed and interesting as Milan, but hey — they take place on the streets of NYC so that counts for well, a lot.