Recap of Greatest American Dog
It has been six years since competing on CBS’ reality show, “Greatest American Dog.” For those of you that didn’t see the competition, I would like to share with you how our relationship went from “a guy with a dog" to "best friends." For my followers that remember the show, I look forward to giving you a behind the scenes look at being on a reality show, how we prepared our dogs for each challenge, and of course some fun facts that you will never believe!
So follow our blog, as each week we will reveal episode clips and a behind the scenes look at the real ‘reality’.
Episode 1, Week One
Before the competition, CBS had us all staying in a hotel in Agoura Hills, CA. Even though we could see each other, we were not allowed to talk. There were times when we would even get in trouble for looking at each other for too long. The idea was that they wanted our first encounters to be done on camera, on the show.
Presley, as most of you know, was only a year and four months old. We were behind the learning curve you might say. Each morning, around 5am we would go into the parking lot of the hotel and “practice”. I would work on a list of things our dogs had to do for the competition. For example, go around, sit, stay (for long periods of time), come or recall with distractions and from long distances, jump up, go under etc. The list goes on and on. So, I didn’t want to make a fool of myself or Presley for that matter. We would practice for short periods, then have a play session. Keeping everything fun and making it into a game made Presley a happy dog. Here is a clip of the first day on the show, where we were officially allowed to communicate:
MEET THE CAST
The first challenge was musical chairs. Before the competition started, Presley actually escaped his leash (human error of course) and ran in between the 15 cameras they had set up. Moments later, the producers told everyone to turn their cameras off so Travis could retrieve his dog! “Oh great, here we go!” I thought to myself. Beginning obedience was required for this challenge; jump up, sit and stay. We had these down, but not with 11 other dogs and owners yelling and screaming at the same time. Take a look….
MUSICAL CHAIRS
After this challenge, we knew we had our work cut out for us. Then came the time for the elimination challenge. We were picked last, of course. Nobody wanted the crazy boxer with the owner that knew nothing. But we were destined for great things! I knew if I could focus on Presley’s strong skills, we would have a chance.
ELIMINATION CHALLENGE
What you didn’t see on this episode was that Presley and I received top honors for the elimination challenge. It didn’t get us anything other than a dog pat on the head, but it sure made us feel great! This blog is for our fans, so if there is something you want to know, hear about, ask or discuss, please make a comment and we will include it in our next post!
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