Bark TV is Where the Dogs are the Stars

I don’t know what color we’ll paint the living room. I’m not sure which day is trash day. And I certainly haven’t met our neighbors yet. The one thing I do know about the house we will move into one day is there will be a dog there. Maybe not on Day 1, but long before most of the boxes get opened.

The more I anticipate this momentous day, the more I suffer from “dog on the brain.” But I’ve found something to hold me over in the meantime. It’s called Bark TV. It’s a relatively new channel that has its own app on Roku. (There’s a bunch of other ways to watch it too — streaming online, on FAST and over-the-air channels, etc. It’s kind of everywhere.)

So while we’re not allowed to have the proverbial family dog where we live right now, the good boys and girls of Bark TV have been filling the void. Bark TV is cute, educational, and just plain entertaining. We’ve even been watching videos about the best ways to teach dogs new tricks so we’ll be ahead of the game when we bring home our furry pupil.

It’s also an incredible option to positively fill up allotted screen time for kids. The pups from Paw Patrol and Bluey won’t be making any appearances on Bark TV, but real dogs doing real dog things can also be quite mesmerizing. Plus, it’s building a familiarity for our children with dogs, which will help prepare them for when a dog becomes part of the family.

Here comes the groom

Like so many children — including ours in the very near future hopefully — I had a dog growing up. His name was Roscoe. Everyone split the duties when it came to feeding, walking, taking him outside, etc. But one thing we did not do in the house — after the early puppy months — was baths. He hated baths!

Roscoe was a medium-size dog, about 40 pounds, but when the water started pouring out of the faucet into the tub, he turned into an ox. He could have pulled a Volkswagen uphill if there was a bathtub running behind him.

My parents would drop him off at the groomers and a couple hours later he was washed, dried, clipped, combed and wearing a fresh handkerchief, looking like a million bucks. We would always wonder how they were able to keep him calm and still enough to work their magic. We called them the Roscoe Wranglers.

“Grooming By Rudy” is Bark TV’s behind-the-scenes look at how this process takes place. It’s amazing to see the skills up close. Rudy makes sure the dogs feel safe and secure and works his magic — the masterful way he navigates his clippers in and around the paw pads is a treat to watch.

But Rudy also explains why regular grooming is not just about keeping up appearances. For some breeds, grooming is akin to preventative care and helps keep your pooch from needing a trip to the vet. It’s not just about winning best in show!

You don’t have to dig for Bark TV

It’s easy to find Bark TV and watch it for free no matter what your method of consuming entertainment. It’s streaming online on StreamStak and it’s available in nearly 100 markets across the U.S. as long as you have a digital antenna (which costs about $20) to pick up over-the-air stations for free. Digital antennas are even being built into many television sets these days, getting people one step closer to Bark TV.

It can also be found as a free ad-supported television (FAST) channel on Dish, Sling TV and Local Now. If you’re not familiar with FAST channels, they’re becoming more and more prevalent in the new entertainment landscape. When I first heard about Bark TV I saw that it was available as its own dedicated app on Roku. I’m a huge Roku fan, so whatever I can do on Roku, sign me up. I wish I could pay my bills and do laundry on Roku. But I’ll settle for watching dogs.

“Americans not only love their dogs — nearly 60 million U.S. households have one — they love dog content too,” says Brendan Canning, co-founder and chief commercial officer of Triple B Media, which operates Bark TV. “Through a series of partnerships with broadcasters across the country, Bark TV has taken the unprecedented step of providing positive, all-dogs, all-the-time programming across a wide range of platforms.”

It’s always on

Here’s a tip for anyone who spends most of their work day staring at a computer screen. Keep a tab open on your browser with Bark TV playing and check in for a few minutes every couple hours. It’s like a coffee break for the soul.

If you’re doing chores around the house, switch out a podcast or music once in a while and put the pups on the big screen. It’s perfect passive television and you never have to worry about the content if one of the kids happens to walk into the room when it’s on. It’s family friendly at all times.

Think about it: How often do you scroll on your phone while watching a scripted show that actually requires full attention for a true payoff? We want dog videos no matter what else is going on! Let someone else do the scrolling and search through the cutest or most interesting videos online and present them to you 24 hours a day. It’s leave-on leisure. It’s bingeing without overconsumption. It’s skinny bingeing!

It was during one of these skinny bingeing sessions recently that I saw an ad for the Barkademy Awards. Nominations are open through mid-May, and any viewer of Bark TV can upload photos of their dogs at barktvdogs.com/awards to compete in five different categories (cutest, best bark, best trick, celebrity lookalike and owner lookalike). I just think it’s super-cool that viewers can watch their own dogs be celebrated and seen by so many people all over the world. We can’t wait to see the winners.

The real stars

While the Barkademy Awards are awesome and Bark TV’s educational and instructional videos are great, the genesis of how online dog videos became an entire industry comes down to two things and two things only: cute and funny. That’s where Tucker the Golden Retriever and Crusoe the Dachsund come in.

Tucker somehow has over 4 million followers on Instagram but can’t work up the courage to walk past three water bottles on the kitchen floor to get to a waiting treat. The dog captions that pop up on the screen (e.g. “Wat da hekk?”) only serve to boost the cuteness levels.

I tuned into Bark TV recently and found Crusoe decked out in a toque blanche and chef coat sampling cheeses while sitting on a table in a bucolic outdoor setting at a Canadian fromagerie. Most people who have owned dogs would assume they wouldn’t be too discerning at a cheese tasting. Not Crusoe. He liked most of what he sampled but the cheese curds weren’t fresh enough so he declined. I guess dog stars aren’t that different from human stars after all.