That's My Dog

Host

Co-hosts

Hostess: Louise Burton

Vet: Eddie Straiton (1984-7), C. C. Guard (1988)

Broadcast

TSW for ITV, 1984-8

Synopsis

Game show that tries to determine whose dog is best. Well, it's original! In fact, it was really a quiz show for the dogs themselves as they were announced as the contestants at the top of the show: "Today we have Cindy a cross-breed from Hungerford, and Biccy a miniature poodle from the Isle of Wight." The dogs' names would be on the front of the podia too, rather than the family surname (although later series featured both family and dog names).

Rounds included the obligatory dog assault course (because that's what dogs do), and there was a maze, the idea of which was that the dog had to find their way out but without being side-tracked by the food that's in the middle. The programme's vet, Eddie Straiton (or C.C. Guard) asked the teams medical questions about their pets, and "Kennel Maid" (hostess) Louise Burton brought on a dog each week that belonged to a famous celebrity who had to be identified from clues.

The winning team got a chance to win the money jackpot (called "the Dog Bone-us" - GEDDIT?) by trying to get their dog to pick a predetermined object - purse, handkerchief or somesuch - that their owner had handled beforehand.

The set of That's My Dog, complete with mechanical scoreboards

Introduced as the "general dogsbody", host Derek Hobson somehow manages to emerge from this with his dignity intact. And remember, without this show there would never have been any Superdogs and Peter Purves would have been out of a job, so let's celebrate, eh?

Inventor

Devised by Derek Hobson and John Viner.

Theme music

Ed Welch, who created a lively theme tune interspersed with a number of suitably-timed woofs.

Trivia

One special edition featured guide dogs, owned by unsighted families.

Believe it or not, there was an American version ran from 1991-95 on their version of The Family Channel.

When TSW lost its franchise in 1991, a viewer wrote into Oracle saying it was "a fate well deserved just for making That's My Dog!" Rather an unfair and uncharitable judgment, wethinks - it certainly wasn't as bad as all that.

Web links

TV Cream

Pictures

This is either (a) a hostess explaining a "dog pampering" prize or (b) a lecherous way for the producer to get a semi-naked lady on TV.

A dog. So now you know what one looks like.

Videos

An episode from 1988.

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