Can Your Heart Survive a Visit to The Dog House: UK?

The TV shows dominating the cultural conversation this summer have been, shall we say, intense. Some, like HBO's Perry Mason and I May Destroy You, follow characters as they try to make sense of their lives after experiencing trauma. Others, like Floor Is Lava, challenge ordinary people to navigate space without being fatally engulfed by the titular substance (except it's not actual lava and everyone lives). If real life is already supplying more uncertainty and terror than you ever wanted, perhaps you'd like to visit a bucolic meadow where gentle handlers prepare sweet pups to find their forever homes? It's called The Dog House: UK, and HBO Max can take you there.

A docuseries originally made for Britain's Channel 4, The Dog House was filmed at an animal rescue center called Wood Green. For eight weeks, cameras were mounted throughout the facility to capture the action: prospective adopters arrive, describe their lives and the sort of dog they want, and staffers propose one or (rarely) two dogs who meet their criteria. The production also built what the opening narration calls a "leafy meeting pen" where introductions could be made; staffers then watch on a closed-circuit feed to see how strong their matchmaking skills actually are. Each episode features a few sets of adopters, and closes with a "Some time later..." epilogue to let us know how things ended up.

Intercut with footage of the potential adopters at Wood Green, we see them tell the stories of what has brought them there. Some are straightforward: little kids have worn down their parents with constant requests to add a dog to the household; retirees want a gentle friend for the senior dog they already have. Others are looking for a dog to love them through a hard time. New widows and widowers seek a warm creature to make their homes feel less empty. People dealing with mental and physical health crises believe it will benefit them to have a dog to walk since it will get them out of the house every day. A formerly incarcerated woman now lives on an acreage that would offer a dog countless exciting smells and lots of room to roam. Some of these details emerge in the adopters' intake interviews, but not all, and the more intimate and revealing supplementary footage underlines how sensitive the Wood Green staffers must be in assessing the people who come through, the better to find the right dog for their specific needs — including the ones they're not sharing or may not even know they have.

The people, though, can at least verbalize what has happened to them in the past and express some of what they want their future to look like; the poor homeless doggies of Wood Green must rely on their kind and patient handlers to speak for them. Not all of the dogs' histories are known — some are taken in as strays that community members find by chance — but most of the dogs we meet come with at least a little backstory, and as you might expect, the fact that they've ended up at a shelter means it's rough. A dog who survived the deaths of both its owners is pretty much the best-case scenario for a Wood Green resident. There are puppies who have been rejected by their mother; puppies who were taken from their mother too soon; a dog returned by seven different owners because he was "too hyper"; a dog who bit someone in defense of an owner; a dog who bites due to "resource guarding" behavior probably developed while living on the streets; a dog used as a stud at a puppy mill and never let out of its crate for exercise. Periodically, we see an owner bring a dog in to surrender it, generally for unimpeachable reasons: a senior is moving into a nursing home that doesn't permit pets, or a woman has lost physical mobility and can no longer safely walk the dog while using crutches. Still, the producers force us to watch as the former owners depart, and the surrendered dog remains in the room, cheerfully letting the Wood Green staffer pet him but staring at the closed door, hopefully waiting for his owner to return. (Fortunately, producers also generally show that surrendered dog being introduced to a potential adopter in the same episode.) When you know what a dog has been through, it can be hard to see him enter the meeting pen and fail to overwhelm the potential adopter with a spectacular first impression. Give Wally a break, man, he's been through the wringer!

Still, the meeting pen is where the show's best moments happen. The humans are led in first, and it seems they're made to wait just long enough to get slightly restless before a handler arrives with the dog who's been chosen to meet them. This show aired months ago in the UK, so I don't know why there isn't already a supercut of the meeting pen door opening and the potential adopters' faces lighting up with joy when they get their first glimpse at the dog they may be taking home with them. It's so pure. (These segments are also doing important work in educating viewers on how to interact with a rescue dog the first time you meet her: stay calm and quiet; be patient; get on her level; let her come to you; don't take it personally if she doesn't.) Sometimes human and dog just aren't feeling each other, but some matches work out exactly as the Wood Green staffers hoped, and the show is so mellow that when a dog who's spent most of her time in the meeting pen just snuffling at the grass finally notices there's a person there and comes over to play, it's... actually exhilarating.

The Dog House: UK won't be for everyone, even some dog lovers; my husband, who lobbied me for half a decade to get a dog (and owns more than a dozen costumes for his canine buddy), refused to watch it on the assumption that it would make him too sad. I must stress that telling true stories of dog rescue means that there are some not-so-happy endings in the mix. But this is an extremely wholesome show. Any given episode will leave you feeling glad you watched it.

All eight episodes of The Dog House: UK drop on HBO Max today.

Writer, editor, and snack enthusiast Tara Ariano is the co-founder of Television Without Pity and Fametracker (RIP). She co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great and Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210), and has contributed to New York, the New York Times magazine, Vulture, Decider, Salon, and Slate, among many others. She lives in Austin.