The Pack

Main points: fun show at first, dog-human duos not well-matched to challenges, challenges were often very fast and physical and not appropriate for some dog contestants, several dogs appeared stressed physically and emotionally (terrified at times), some bad language not edited. Spoiler alerts. My kids and I watched this together for several episodes. We enjoyed the first episodes, which were a lot of fun, but we were concerned about the dogs as the challenges became more physically demanding and did not play to the dogs’ natural strengths. At times, the owners’ opted for physical people-oriented challenges even though more dog-friendly options were available. Some dogs seemed in distress at times, especially the older dog (nine years old!) At one point my son was really unhappy because of some of the dogs looked so scared and unhappy. Also, the small dogs had a serious disadvantage as the competitions often required speed (a tiny dog vs a two-year old golden retriever is not exactly a fair competition.) Small dog owners carried their dogs a lot and were eliminated early in the competition. I did skip over and watch the last episode just out of curiosity. The winning teams were dogs and owners who were very althetic and already regularly into running, surfing, and hiking/climbing with their owners before the competition. The bottom line here is that the show was poorly planned with convoluted challenges that didn’t always keep the dogs in mind. If Amazon tries this show again, they need to seriously rethink their dog-human duo choices, planning of challenges, and monitor the dogs with better care. My son and I ultimately stopped watching because he balked at the dogs who seemed stressed and their owners were still competing, although my daughter did finish the series.