In the Woodhouse way, TV really is going to the dogs
Dogs may be man's best friend, but they worship and adore Barbara Woodhouse. Given half a chance, the entire canine species doubtless would slobber and slurp all over her, tails wagging fast enough to cause gale warnings throughout the British Isles. Woodhouse, however, is not a slobbery, slurpy sort of lady, as anyone who has watched her TV show can testify: her highest form of praise is a little tickle on the chest. Not a big tickle, mind you, and rarely a rub or a pat. Just a very little tickle, administered by the middle finger of the right hand. "We're never boisterous about praising," she says, "or the dogs get silly."
Silliness is not something Woodhouse approves of, in dogs or people. But many people in Britain are as silly about her as about their animals. Her ten-part series, Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way, was the BBC's surprise hit of 1980, so popular that it has been repeated twice since for 4 million nearly rabid viewers. Now being syndicated on 78 stations throughout the U.S., it should prove equally irresistible to millions of Americans, who will discover in Woodhouse, 71, the most original—and unintentionally funny—female TV personality since Julia Child.
The entire series was shot at Campions, her 30-acre home in Hertfordshire, 20 miles from London. The budget was so low that the BBC seems too embarrassed to give a figure; the star herself was paid precisely $3,750 for the entire series, with half that much still to come from the American broadcasts. There are no sets unless you count some sheds, a car and a carport. There are no costumes; obviously Woodhouse was born in a blue sweater, plaid skirt and sensible English shoes. The filming is on the level of the average home movie, and the action consists solely of Woodhouse putting mutts and masters through their paces. The dogs appear to be enjoying themselves; the owners, a dozen or so terror-stricken men and women, do not.
That, of course, is where all the fun lies for the viewer, in the comic reversal of the customary roles of man and beast. Woodhouse is convinced that almost any dog can be trained in anywhere from 2½ to six minutes, and she proves it so often that it must be true—at least when she does it. Most owners, on the other hand, are hopeless. Take poor Mr. Chambers, the tall fellow with the mustache and the unruly Doberman. He—Mr. Chambers, that is—looks smart enough, but is absolutely impossible on a leash. "That's not a very creditable performance," Woodhouse impatiently tells him on one episode. "You're rather fidgety," she observes on another. "Can you calm yourself?"
Woodhouse has always found animals easier to get along with than people, and the animals have always responded in kind. When she was growing up as the daughter of a clergyman and educator, her mother boarded dogs; when one of them was barking, young Barbara was instructed to go "talk to it in your 'little' voice." Her "little" voice usually had the necessary tranquilizing effect; when it did not, she would bring the unhappy creature into her bedroom. At one time she had eleven four-legged roommates.