The Dog House Isn’t a Dog Dating Show, It’s Therapy

Like a cloud of candyfloss twirled around its stick, the sweetest, wispiest things can have a solid core, just as people with the sunniest dispositions have often had the stormiest lives. The same applies to TV shows. A programme that seems twee on the surface may turn out to have depth and steel beneath its cheery face. 

Anyone who thinks long-running BBC One drama Call the Midwife, for instance, is just nuns beaming over slices of Victoria sponge cake while new mums knit matinee jackets, ignores the show’s red-hot socialism and the pints of blood those nuns wade through to remind us why a National Health Service built on immigration is to be treasured, and why women having autonomy over their bodies is a bedrock of civilised society. There is also a fair bit of Victoria sponge cake-beaming, to be clear, but it’s incidental to the show’s core.

The core of Channel 4’s long-running dog adoption show The Dog House is hope. Underpinning the cutesy music and footage of adorable pooches is an unblinking confrontation of the things in life that can go terribly, terribly wrong. That acceptance is combined with the show’s message belief that whatever has gone wrong, there’s a next step to a future not just to be salvaged, but to be relished. 

And – you guessed right – that next step is getting a dog.

Not always! A portion of the people who walk up the driveway to the Woodgreen rehoming centre in the programme come away having understood that dogs can be big-personality tyrants with teeth, and that opening their life to one would destroy rather than improve it. (They’re the ones either missing from each episode’s final “Some Time Later” recap, or who appear in it, but shifting uncomfortably in their seat as they explain why they chose not to bring home Buster, the obese, incontinent Newfoundland.) 

Most people who make it as far as The Dog House though, end up with a dog. Every episode, three potential dog adopters visit the centre and are interviewed about the kind of animal they’re after and how they envision it fitting into their lives. What size, age, sex, breed, and personality are they open to? Is it an outdoorsy rabbit-chaser they’re picturing, more of a sofa-cuddler, or a bit of both? People come alone, in couples, in pairs, as a family or with friends. And more often than not, they aren’t just looking for a dog to bring home, they’re looking for a dog to complete their home.

The Dog House’s clients are usually – as reality television requires – on a journey, and not just to Cambridgeshire, where the show is filmed. They might be lonely, or grieving, or recovering from a traumatic event, and they’ve made the hopeful decision that love and companionship will help. The Dog House and its staff know that love and companionship will help. They’ve seen it happen, and week-in and week-out, so has the viewer.

Take five-year-old Violet, the first dog-adopter of the most recent series. She and her grandmother walk up to the Woodgreen reception – staffed by actor Elisha Duffy, the show’s professional greeter whose job it is to put people at ease and get them to introduce themselves for our benefit – with a dog already in hand. Tyson is a cheeky sausage who’s kept in check by Violet, who comforts and disciplines him with charm and authority. Elisha gives him a tickle and a little play as they walk in, and the Woodgreen staff make admiring comments as Tyson settles by Violet’s feet.

Unlike the dogs at Woodgreen, Tyson is invisible. He’s Violet’s imaginary companion, a safe way for her to communicate her feelings. If Tyson’s feeling scared, perhaps Violet is too. If he’s lonely or in need of a cuddle, so might Violet be. For the past two years, Violet has lived with her grandparents because her parents are unwell and unable to care for her. The family is clearly going through a very difficult time, but Violet is clearly loved to bits, and she’s ready to love a non-imaginary dog.

Poodle-cross Lola turns out to be that dog. In the specially made pen in which potential adopters interact with the centre’s dogs – who need rehoming because they were either unwanted, abandoned, ill-treated, or their owners were unable to look after them – Lola is initially unsure. Like many of the centre’s dogs, she’s formed a bond with her handler and is nervous of new people. Violet’s grandmother asks what Lola is saying, and the five-year-old empathetically interprets the dog as feeling sad and, tellingly, wanting “to go back to her other house.” 

Soon though, Lola relaxes, and she and Violet play and cuddle. The short VT at the end of the episode is full of fun and affection, and Violet calls Lola “the perfect dog” and a best friend for little Violet. Tyson, notes Lola’s grandmother, doesn’t come around much now.

That’s just one story of many. There are couples experiencing fertility struggles who need to put their boundless love somewhere, and who find joy in adding a dog to their family. There are children with disabilities who find the total acceptance that they sadly don’t get in the street or the playground, in the adoration from a rescue dog. There are people of all ages recovering from serious injuries or traumatic losses, all of whom decide to open up their lives instead of shutting them down. 

The Dog House is cutely described by Channel 4 as “the dog dating show where people and dogs are matched and – hopefully – fall in love”. Matchmaking is a key element, as is chemistry, compatibility, and sometimes even love at first sight. The Woodgreen staff who suggest potential matches are like fairy godmothers, instinctually knowing just which animal could be the right fit for which household and more often than not, getting it right. 

This is more than a dating show though, it’s therapy. It’s a show that squares its shoulders to sadness and offers hope – in the form of a wriggling staffie found abandoned by the side of a busy road, who’s now the apple of its adoring family’s eye. Bad things happen, says The Dog House, but there’s a future, one that will involve twice-daily walks, chewed-up toys, all your soft furnishings getting absolutely covered in dog hair, and love.

The Dog House is available to stream on Channel 4.com in the UK and on Max in the US.

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