America's Top Dog
America's Top Dog is a television series that premiered on A&E in January 2020. The show is hosted by actor David Koechner and sportscaster Curt Menefee, while Rachel Bonnetta serves as the sideline reporter for the show. The first season was filmed at Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita. The second and third seasons were filmed back-to-back in Simi Valley.
Format
In the show, five dogs and their handlers—usually four police K-9 teams and one civilian team—compete in a three-phase competition. The first phase, the Canine Combine, is an obstacle course that includes the car slalom, the fire escape, the high jump, the rope bridge, and the splashdown. The fastest four dogs through the Combine advance to the next phase. The next phase is the Boneyard, a scent detection test, where the dogs try to find as many scented objects as possible, and alert their handlers to the find, in a maze of rooms in five minutes or less. For each dog's run, the scent used is whatever the dog is most familiar with. The two dogs that find the most objects advance to the final phase. In the last phase, the Doghouse, the dogs and handlers make their way through a "house," including knocking down the door, climbing through the window into a spider-web of bungees, low-crawling, climbing boxes, running through a duct-work tunnel, breaching two doors, and finally apprehending a "suspect," including taking him down and then releasing on command and returning to the handler. The dog that completes the phase the fastest wins the title of "America's Top Dog," $10,000, an additional $5,000 donated to the animal charity of their choice, and the opportunity to compete in the grand finale, which has a $25,000 prize.
Season Two features a new format, with dogs facing against each other in head-to-head matches across classes of working dogs, police K-9 dogs and "underdogs". The winners of the three classes then face off against each other, with the final winner receiving a $10,000 cash prize and a choice to donate $5,000 to an animal charity of their choice. The final contest features winners of the previous weeks going head-to-head for a cash prize of $25,000.
Remake
The German TV channel RTL acquired rights from A&E for remaking the show into a six-episode series titled Top Dog Germany. It premiered on July 23, 2021.