One Man and His Dog

Synopsis

It's been many hundreds of years since animals have been put up for trial (hello to our readers in Hartlepool). Maybe for crimes they didn't commit. The tradition was brought back crash bang into the Twentieth Century with One Man and His Dog, a television programme about sheepdog trials.

Three shepherds, who each owned a sheepdog attempted to whistle and "come by" their way through the show. Each competitor typically had to get their dog to guide some sheep through a gate, into a ring (where they'd have to separate a certain sheep from the rest) and then into a pen, all the while being given marks by judges. The sheep generally played up quite a bit, but nobody had the clever idea of just shouting "mint sauce!" or somesuch.

The vets at BBC 2 head office finally put the programme to sleep as we approached the new millennium. They didn't quite succeed in killing it off, though, as it still lives on in the form of annual specials. Rumours surface from time to time about a full-scale comeback, but realistically it's not going to happen. And the (at one point seriously mooted) idea of Sky buying it and renaming it Sky One Man and His Dog was just silly, really.

We always wanted to sheep to win, actually.

Trivia

In 1996, special programmes featuring younger contestants were shown. The name? Young Man and His Dog. Awww...

Obscure horse and country TV channel Horse & Country TV launched their own version in 2007 called Come-Bye!, again hosted by Robin Page, but instead of holding their own contests they just went along and filmed the regular national dog trial competitions. They actually wanted to use the One Man and His Dog name, but the BBC wouldn't let them, on the not-unreasonable grounds that they were still using it themselves.

The Gaelic-language channel BBC Alba also aired a sheepdog trials series, Farpaisean Chon-Chaorach, in 2008. The hosts were Dòmhnall MacSuain (Donald MacSween) and Catrìona Nic a Phì (Catriona MacPhee) but like "Come-Bye!", they covered existing dog trials rather than staging their own. It's actually proven to be a bit of a hit (insofar as something can be a hit on a channel that barely registers on the ratings even at the best of times) and is coming back for 2010. We did see a repeat on the even more stupendously obscure Tele-G channel (no, don't bother asking) and it's very similar to 1M&HD indeed, though it could use some proper score graphics. We were particularly impressed by the quality of the Scottish sheep, which aren't the sort to take orders from anybody, least of all some over-excited mutt and a bloke with a weedy little whistle. Go sheep! Curiously, even though the show itself is in Gaelic, its website is in English.

If the dog's running Clockwise, it's "Come by", and for Anticlockwise it's "Away". So now you know.

Catchphrases

*whistle* "Come by!"

Theme music

Alan Benson

Merchandise

30 Years of One Man and His Dog R2 DVD

One Man and His Dog book by Phil Drabble

Pictures

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