History Series / ItsMeOrTheDog

Creator/AnimalPlanet's show about owners of problem pets seeking the advice of expert trainer Victoria Stilwell. It's like ''Series/{{Supernanny}}'' for dogs, which is no surprise seeing as it's produced by the same company.

* ViciousCycle: "The Terrible Two" had a Maltese and a Pomeranian that barked so loudly and so continuously that Victoria warned the husband he would get hearing loss if he had to be around them all day for much longer. Every time they started barking, the wife would shout at them to shut up, which just made them bark more and louder. Victoria showed her that simply being calm around them, even when they did bark, would get them to respond to her mood and calm down themselves.

* GoodTamingEvilTaming: In episodes where the dog is being subjected to overly-harsh punishments, they're contrasted with Victoria's methods.

* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: Sometimes played straight with owners that use violent tactics on their dogs, but sometimes inverted in that many owners are actively trying to treat their dogs well, but end up damaging their psyches anyway, either due to ignorance of what's actually healthy for them or [[PushoverParent reluctance to discipline bad behavior]].

* AllAnimalsAreDogs: In a twist on the original trope, Victoria once worked with a woman who had only ever owned cats before. When she got her first dog Niles, she treated him more like a cat, which significantly contributed to his aggression. Victoria had to firmly explain that Niles was a dog, and how he should therefore be approached/treated. Heartwarmingly, once Karen learned how to speak Niles' language, their relationship massively improved and by the end of the episode both were perfectly happy with each other.

** Taken to new levels in the 7/3/2012 episode "This Dog is Ready to Implode." Not surprising with a situation that was seemingly pushing all of Victoria's [[BerserkButton buttons]] at once -- a dog that was being subjected to a shock collar (and scent collars and other such nonsense in the past), a brother of one of the owners that was coming in and teasing the dog, a family that didn't seem entirely serious with the training, and to top things off, the family bringing in another reactive dog that they were babysitting without informing Victoria in advance. Things were so bad that Victoria almost seemed ready for a RageQuit.

** In "The Dogs That Walk Their Owners”, Toadie and Smartie would go completely nuts if they so much as saw another dog while being walked, and would immediately attack. To make matters worse, they weighed 8 stone/112 pounds each and were almost impossible to restrain when they were angry. They had attacked three different dogs before and their owners had to move four times because of it.

* ViciousCycle: "The Terrible Two" had a Maltese and a Pomeranian that barked so loudly and so continuously that Victoria warned the husband he would get hearing loss if he had to be around them all day. Every time they started barking, the wife would shout at them to shut up, which just made them bark more and louder. Victoria showed her that simply being calm around them, even when they did bark, would get them to respond to her mood and calm down themselves.

** In "The Dogs That Walk Their Owners”, Toadie and Smartie would go completely nuts if they so much as saw another dog while being walked, and would immediately attack. To make matters worse, they weighted 8 stone/112 pounds each and were almost impossible to restrain when they were angry. They had attacked three different dogs before and their owners had to move four times because of it.

** This was taken up to eleven in 6/23/2012 episode "He Has to Go." There was a group of four dogs and the husband had hearing loss because of the continuous barking. Victoria actually brought in a decibel meter and showed that the levels were well over 100 with one dog and over 110 with another. According to the [[http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/pages/noise.aspx National Institute on Deafness]], constant exposure to sounds even above ''85'' decibels is enough to cause hearing loss. 110 decibels is about equivalent to a power saw at close range.

* TreatedWorseThanThePet: Self-inflicted by the Chubb family, who give their Great Dane/Lab mixes Toadie and Smartie fancy home-cooked steak and chicken dinners while they themselves eat frozen dinners.

* TreatedWorseThanThePet: Self-inflicted by the Chubb family, who give their Great Dane/Lab mixes Toadie and Smartie gourmet meals while they themselves eat frozen dinners.