Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Haute Dog’ On HBO Max, Where Dog Groomers Compete, ‘Chopped’ Style, And Let The Fur Fly

Haute Dog (when you pronounce “haute” the right way you get how the name works on multiple levels) is a Chopped-style competition where three expert groomers compete for a $10,000 prize. Rogers and the judges — champion groomer Jess Rona and comedian Robin Thede — preside over themed episodes where the groomers complete two tasks. The winner of the first task gets a “leg up” for the second task. And, yes, there are lots of dog puns like that throughout the episode.

HAUTE DOG: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A wall of photos of well-groomed dogs. Host Matt Rogers welcomes the audience to Haute Dog, the ultimate dog makeover show, where three top pet stylists compete to turn canines into K-10s.”

The Gist: The theme of the first episode is “Holly-WOOF”, and in the first task the groomers are given 90 minutes to transform a dog they’re given into a representation of their style and the dog’s personality. Every groomer gets the same type of dog; in this case, it’s a toy poodle. The “leg up” the winner gets is a “golden bone” squeaky toy that, when they squeeze it, gives them five extra minutes in the second round to complete the task.

The second task, which determines the “best in show” winner, is to take a dog that they know and transform the pooch into something representing Hollywood royalty. Deborah transforms her pup into a Lucille Ball tribute, complete with red-dyed accents. Arisa gives her dog a Japanese unicorn look, which is true to her heritage. Huber takes his dog and gives him a Liz Taylor makeover, complete with the late actress’ famous décolletage.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Haute Dog is like Chopped, but with the more jokey tone of Nailed It! Suffice to say, it doesn’t take itself at all seriously. Oh, and if you saw the HBO documentary Well Groomed, you’ll be familiar with this sort of work.

Our Take: The producers of Haute Dog decided to lean hard on the kitsch when producing the reality competition; the set is all pinks and baby blues and looks like it’s straight out of the sixties, while the music is all ’70s disco glam. The set looks like a knockoff of The Gong Show. Other elements are there to tell the audience that the show they’re watching is going to be goofy. But when you lean hard on the kitsch, you end up tiring the audience out to the point where the idea of binge watching the show seems daunting.

Rogers’ hosting style is really, really intense; he leans into the kitsch so much at times it’s exhausting. Though he does unleash some funny lines, like when he introduces the second challenge by saying the pups should look like they belong on the “Dog Walk of Fame, which somehow has less dog poop than the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”

It feels like, during the competition period, when Rogers, Rona and Thede are just making observations from the judges’ table, they’re almost borderline making fun of the groomers, or at least commenting on how intense they are. Well, Rona may not be doing any of that since she’s a groomer herself, but sometimes we didn’t know if Thede and Rogers were admiring the groomers’ work or poking fun at it.

Rona, as you’d expect, comes through with lots of good constructive criticism for the groomers; she even sees a too-long hair on Huber’s poodle. But, as much as we love her in pretty much whatever she does, we’re not sure what Thede is there for. Is she a dog owner, or someone who is just there to judge from a non-expert perspective? Or is she just there for comic relief? It seemed that the only person who added real criticism was Rona, the career groomer. And perhaps that’s enough for a show like this.

Parting Shot: The winner got Best In Show, but Rogers is happy to say that all three dogs get treats!

Sleeper Star: Oh, this has to go to the dogs that are having their fur shaved and dyed, and a special shout-out to the male dogs in the second round who were made to look like female people. Huber’s dog Superman even got a tiara. They all seemed to be good sports about it.

Most Pilot-y Line: Part of the kitsch is to show the dogs in a one-shot, sitting on or near a leather couch, and give them quotes that are shown at the bottom of the screen. It’s one of those things that seem funny at first but gets old quick.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Listen, we’re not going to be so heartless as to pan a show that puts dogs in the spotlight. But Haute Dog could have been just as good with the kitschiness cut by half, and be a whole lot less tiring to watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Haute Dog On HBO Max