I tend to enjoy shows like this because I like dogs and I also have friends who have dogs that would probably be considered problematic enough to be featured on a show like this. The only problem that I have with this show's existence is that it is essentially exactly the same thing as Dog Whisperer with Cesar Milan with there only being extremely minor differences.
Anytime that someone basically rips off an idea and makes a series out of it I am going to be overly critical of the production, so you can go ahead and prepare yourself for that.
The star of this show is Jas Leverette and he is from Oakland, which I don't know if you are aware of this, isn't exactly the best place to be from. It is riddled with crime in many areas and is a hotbed for gang activity. While I certainly feel great for Jas that he was able to grow up and avoid that but one thing that really gets to me and it happens in every single episode that he tries to blame racism and society for the issues that his community faces going as far as to say that blacks are over-represented in the prison population immediately after telling us that his friend went to jail for "some pretty bad stuff."
Here's a solution to the Jas: Don't do "some pretty bad stuff" and you tend to not go to jail, regardless of your color. Netflix has had a race-based agenda lately and I find it irritating that they would utilize a show about dog behavior to once again interject race into everything. They also love to point out over and over again that he is Muslim and you know, I don't care what religion you or anyone else is, WTF does that have to do with dog training?
If you are as fed up with that sort of things getting forced down our throats by Netflix at every available opportunity you will probably watch about as many episodes as I did. Jas doesn't have much of a personality outside of constantly referring to his victim-status and this was one thing I appreciated about Cesar Milan, despite being a minority, he never used it as his identity, he was just Cesar Milan. He was also amusing whereas Jas seems to transition from condescending to robot-like, and i just don't really like it because he has the personality of a semicolon.
There is also the controversy that has emerged about his show and his techniques that are "known all around the world" as he claims. There are a bunch of animal behavior specialists that have said that his techniques get really close to being animal abuse and there are some that say that it definitely is. Also, there is the question about how Jas refers to himself as a behaviorist, which he is not. You can call yourself that all that you want but Jas is not licensed nor does he have an educational background in this. You can put whatever you want on your resume, but that doesn't necessarily make it true.
Should I watch it?
If you enjoy being preached to by someone who is going to remind us every 10 minutes or so how tough he had it growing up and how his community is repressed (he doesn't say it, but he means by white people) then perhaps you will like it. The techniques used are questionable and could get you hurt if you try them also since they do involve being quite aggressive to aggressive dogs in an attempt to establish dominance and be the "alpha."
Ultimately, I feel as though this show has already been done a lot better by Cesar Milan and they didn't have to interject race into everything. Cesar also doesn't have a bunch of actual certified animal behaviorists coming out of the woodwork calling his techniques animal abuse. I turned it off after 2 episodes and I wont be back.
