If you try hard enough, you can do anything

To say that Dave and Mary Ray are looking forward to seeing Faking It (C4) on 17 February would be an understatement. For those not familiar with the format of this programme, Faking It is a transformational battle against the odds. Our hero is plucked from their natural habitat and given four weeks to master a skill well enough to fool a group of expert judges. During the month of intensive training, top practitioners, famous in their field, tutor the faker. So what does this have to do with dog training? And what does it have to do with agility? Let’s start at the beginning.

It was back in May 2003 when Ros Homan, the Assistant Producer of a programme called Faking It (C4) contacted us regarding a programme for the next series. Would Mary Ray would be able to train someone who hadn’t handled a dog before to do heelwork to music she asked. It was all very secretive, and we had quite a number of what at the time I called ‘strange telephone calls’ asking inquisitive questions about dog training. 

The producers, an independent production company called RDF, intended making one of the episodes about dog training.  They wanted to take a management consultant from London named Rob Archer, a guy who had never owned or trained a dog and three weeks, later have him competing in a Heelwork to Music competition at Richmond Championship Show with a rescue dog he’d only met three weeks earlier!

Ros told us she had also been talking to Kay Raven, a well-known obedience trainer and supplier of dogs for television and films. After this, she arranged to meet us at the South London Obedience Show in June to have a chat. This was to also turn out to be an audition.

Armed with a camcorder, Ros turned up at the South London Show and interviewed Mary and Kay on video. I felt a bit important as well as I got interviewed, too! We also had a repeat of the process at our house. Obviously the producers were being very careful about who they chose to be trainers on the programme, bearing in mind that some people cannot repeat their day-to-day performance in front of the camera. I think they wanted to be sure that the people chosen would be able to handle the pressure before committing themselves.

Monday, 11 August 2004. The first day of shooting had arrived. The contestant Rob was taken from his home in London down to Kay’s house to meet her and his  his co-star Bobby. Rob still hadn’t got a clue exactly what he would be doing. He spent three days with Kay, getting to know Bobby and going through some of the basic exercises in obedience and, most importantly, building up a good relationship with the dog.

At Dogs in Need
In the meantime, we were actually at a week-long agility show called Dogs in Need at the Suffolk Showground. The television company had a caravan delivered and parked next to ours, ready for Rob and Bobby to arrive on the Thursday.  I won’t keep repeating it through this article but at every point during filming Rob did not know what was going to happen. When he travelled up Ipswich, he was completely oblivious of what was going to happen when he got there.

He was brought into the showground on Thursday, 14 August and with the co-operation of the show committee he was taken straight to the main arena where Mary performed her Crufts Spanish heelwork to music routine while Rob watched on. Then they broke the news to him that this was what they were going to do. And that folks was the first he knew about it - I think gobsmacked is the word that comes to mind!

He then stayed on site and got himself immersed in the world of dog training, whilst being filmed. We had him running a dog in agility at the show, helping to feed the dogs, etc. In fact, he was doing everything. It must have been the quickest occupation change that anyone had ever seen, but it was also terribly difficult as all our friends were there, and we couldn’t tell them what exactly was going on. People were trying to guess but we had been sworn to secrecy.

At the end of the show that weekend, we all went back to our house. Fortunately we had moved one month prior from our small terrace to one a little bit larger with a self-contained annex, so Rob was able to make his home there which is where he would be for most of the next three weeks along with the film crew.  And that’s what happened - daily training with Mary with Kay spending some time at our house as well. 

He also went up to Mike Gadsby’s in Blackpool where he had lessons in how to prepare a dog for the ring from one of the country’s experts.  In addition to this, he visited various events; he ran a dog in agility at the Town & Country Festival in August and showed one of Mike Gadsby’s dogs at the City of Birmingham Show - in actual fact, I think it was the most amazing three weeks he is ever likely to have.

During the filming, there were times when we were in stitches. We had both asked the producers that, when they picked the subject , they make sure he/she could dance and have some rhythm, but when we met Rob at Dogs in Need he said he wasn’t keen on dancing. 

So on the Saturday night at DIN when there was a live band, we took him into the dance, and after a few drinks we persuaded him to get up onto the dance floor. We couldn’t believe it - 'Can’t dance won’t dance' is the phrase which comes to mind! So immediately Mary knew that we had a problem with what kind of musical routine to perform. However, Rob was mad on sport and, in particular, cricket and football. We didn’t know any cricket songs, but there were a few football ones so I’m sure you will appreciate Rob’s rendition of ‘Match of the Day’ with Bobby. 

We had decided before filming started that there would be a day when a verdict needed to be made about the dog. If Bobby the rescue dog wasn’t going to work, we would need to pull in a reserve which would be one of our dogs. When decision day came, the producer Patrick said that perhaps they needed to re-focus Rob to make sure he was taking it seriously. Kay said she had been the 'baddy' before so this time it was Mary’s turn. 

The meeting was convened in our annex as Mary duly informed Rob that she thought perhaps Bobby was not going to be good enough so they might need to drop her and bring in a reserve. Well, the scene was hysterical. Rob just couldn’t believe Mary was saying this with a straight face. Mary was on the verge of going into hysterics herself, and Rob started to get annoyed about the fact that dropping Bobby was even being discussed. This session of winding up Rob went on for quite a while until eventually Mary couldn’t hold back the laughter any more. It really was such a funny episode. And it was all captured on film. Whether they will put it into the final edit who knows.

At Longleat
The final event that we took Rob to was the Longleat Agility Show on Friday, 5 September where once again with the co-operation of the show committee, we would use one of their rings . It was a chance for Rob to give his first public performance of his very own football heelwork to music routine.  We made a few announcements over the tannoy. Mary performed her Crufts routine again and then it was time for Rob to have his final test with Bobby. He did an amazing job on it as you will see in the programme. There wasn’t much final tuning to be done either. Rob left us that afternoon to the accompaniment of some tears as he was to travel to Richmond for the ‘grand finale’ of the show. He was to have the Saturday off, and the judging would take place on the Sunday.

At The Richmond Show
The Show Committee were so good in allowing the final to take place at their show, especially when you see just how much equipment the television crew brought with them for an event like this. The Best in Show Ring was fixed up with huge sets of television lights and a full sound set-up. 

We travelled up from Longleat during the morning and were sneaked into the showground as we were not allowed to see either Rob or Bobby. We also took along our dog Taz who was to be the stand-in should anything go wrong as during his training Rob had practised his routine with Taz as well as Bobby.  Mary was taken to a caravan with Kay and Mike, and they had to watch the whole proceedings on a television monitor while I sat in one of the racecourse grandstands.

I had one hairy moment when Taz caught sight of Rob and decided he was desperate to see him and made the accompanying noises, so I had to move swiftly to the back of the grandstand and stay completely out of the way. The master of ceremonies for the event was Peter Purves. Judges had been appointed and three other experienced heelwork to music handlers had been invited to come along to compete in this grand final.

If you’ve seen the programme before you will know the judges have to pick out who was faking it. The choice of judges had been difficult because they obviously had to pick people who did not know any of the competitors involved. I would like to tell you just exactly what happened, but unfortunately my lips are sealed. You will have to watch the programme to find out if the judges guessed who was faking it! 

Working on the programme was a quite amazing experience, and it was quite satisfying to see how Rob built up such a splendid relationship with not only the rescue dog Bobby but also our dog Taz or Tazman as he called him!. Whenever Mary rested Bobby from training, then Rob would continue practising his techniques with Taz. I think Mary got a lot of satisfaction from seeing the relationship Rob built up with Taz as well as Bobby and also what can be achieved when training someone with no experience and no pre-conceived ideas.

The Kennel Club were totally behind the filming of this programme and when you consider how much positive television coverage dogs get, it was a golden opportunity to show exactly what you can achieve and what fun you can have with a dog and also how you can achieve it by using modern, kind training techniques. We haven’t seen the programme ourselves yet so we will be avidly watching on the night of Tuesday, 17 February . We hope it will be as good as we think it is.

Don't miss it

Faking It
Channel 4 - Tuesday, 17 February 2004

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