By RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com, filed January 10, 2011
After two seasons of "It's Me or the Dog" shot primarily in Atlanta, local dog trainer Victoria Stilwell wanted a change of scenery.
She thought back to her five years as a trainer in New York and all those poor dogs living in cramped quarters with no yards and more stress-inducing stimulus than you can chase a stick at.
So this season's 12 episodes were shot in that area.
"It was like going like going back to something IÂ really knew," Stilwell said. "I felt comfortable. Dogs have to be more sociable there. They're living on top of each other. Dogs barking in an apartment is a bigger deal than one living in a stand-alone house. You can evicted! Problems can be more intense."
The first episode is a bit of cross-promotion with Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York." Stilwell helps out Jill Zarin and her pooch Ginger, who is very nervous and bites.
"Jill is such a socialite. She needed a way to get Ginger to cope. She doesn't understand much about dogs. She was treating Ginger like a child. That doesn't work. Ginger was very cantankerous, very insecure."
Even after doing seven seasons (including four in England), Stilwell said she's not bored of the work. "I have to keep things as exciting as possible for me and the viewers so I change up my methods," she said. "That's really challenging and stimulating."
Her approach is positive and non-aggressive in contrast to Cesar Millan, "the Dog Whisperer." She said over the years, she has cut back on making sounds to interrupt bad behavior. "Now I don't do that at all," she said. "I'm even more of a positive trainer than before."
But she can be tough on owners who are at cross purposes, neglectful or indulgent. "The trainer tries to instill harmony within the people in the household," she said. (Only once has she ever had such a hopeless situation she had to tell the owners to give the dogs up.)
This season, she changed the production a bit, making it more documentary style and less formulaic, she said. "It's more raw now," she said.
The scolding Brit has become a true formula in the United States: "The Weakest Link" host Anne Robinson, Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan, "Supernanny" Jo Frost and Gordon Ramsey , to name a few. Stilwell fits that mold to an extent, but after 13 years stateside, she said Americanisms are creeping into her language (though I could hardly tell.) "I married an American. My daughter speaks with an American accent," she said. "I'm surrounded!"
For now, she's embraced life in Atlanta. "I love the pace here," Stilwell said. Her biggest contribution was convincing Lowe's to help out PAWS Atlanta, the shelter, with about $350,000 in contributions to spruce up the place for an episode. "It was incredible to achieve something like that," she said, "to use my fame to get things like that done." She also runs her own foundation at positively.com with the following mission:
The Victoria Stilwell Foundation provides financial support and canine behavior expertise to assistance dog organizations and small animal rescue shelters while promoting the concept of reward-based, positive reinforcement dog training philosophies in organizations and households throughout the United States.
She has found trainers who follow her positive methodology and given them a stamp of approval. Of the 30 given Stilwell's thumbs up, five are in Atlanta. You can find one here.
You can also listen to Stilwell on podcasts taped with CNN's Holly Firfer.
TV PREVIEW
"It's Me or the Dog" Animal Planet, 8 p.m. Saturdays, starting January 8
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By Rodney Ho, rho@ajc.com, AJCRadioTV blog
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