By Scott Bryan– Dogs Might Fly on Sky 1 consists of rescue dogs being taught how to fly light aircraft. Ahead of the final episode, here is footage of the dog in the cockpit.
This rescue dog, Shadow, is flying light aircraft 3000ft in the air and at approximately 130 miles an hour.
Shadow did not take off or land the plane, as it would have been too risky. Once the plane reached a safe height, the controls were handed to the dog from his co-pilot.
Shadow’s trainer, animal expert Charlotte Wilde, is positioned in the back seat. She presses buttons, which emit lights and noises in front of Shadow, directing him where to turn.
Shadow has also been trained to sit in this position and is secured by a special dog harness, as the Civil Aviation Authority does not allow any modifications to be made to the steering wheel for dogs.
This teaser ahead of Sunday’s show features the dog attempting to make a “figure of eight” above Berkshire.
The show claims there were months of training to make this work.
The whole stunt has been masterminded by animal behaviourist Mark Vette, who trained several dogs to drive a car in New Zealand in 2012.
Uh huh.
This plane stunt is the climax of Dogs Might Fly, which has consisted of various experiments by professionals to test dog empathy, communication, and intelligence.
All the dogs featured had been abandoned and all of them found new homes, with many of the production crew and trainers adopting them.
Some of the experiments didn’t work as planned. In one, the dogs had to try to position a box underneath some string containing a treat, without any instruction.
Presenter Jamie Theakston was very excited by this scientific experiment.
The first dog played with the string and failed.
The second dog failed and then took a shit :/
The third dog pulled the box away from the treat.
Probably because dogs like string.
But then managed to do it!
One challenge even featured a dog learning music instruments before performing in a “music video.”
Why? Well, they said that it shows how versatile and intelligent dogs are, but it also might be because the show has six episodes and they had to fill it with something.
Here they are performing Pharrell’s “Happy.”
Dogs Might Fly will be on Sky 1 this Sunday at 7pm.
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