I have a couple of programming notes from National Geographic, one for its new Wild channel and the other for the main National Geographic Channel. Both are pretty interesting.
Starting tonight, National Geographic Wild premieres, “My Dog Ate What?” which focuses on what vets have found inside the stomach of man’s best friend. Some interesting stuff.
My Dog Ate What? Glass, Glue, and RocksTuesday, May 4 at 10pm ET/PTIs it possible for dogs to eat underwear? It’s no secret that dogs eat amazing things, and sometimes even more astonishing are the miraculous twists that can save their lives. The owners of Lola, a labradoodle, realize she ingested underwear after examining her vomit. As if the underwear incident weren’t enough, Lola’s owners later find bloody paw prints after a gorging incident with some tasty brownies from a broken glass dish. Luckily for Lola, after a trip to the vet for X-rays and surgery, there is a twist to the case — the underwear and socks in Lola’s stomach shielded her digestive system from the shattered glass ingested with the brownies … and saved her life!Bethesda MD USA: Luciano is 130 pounds of love. The Rottweiler is loyal and gentle. His strong Rottweiler appetite has gotten him into some trouble with his owners, Deedee, a realtor, and Chris, a documentary photojournalist, especially when he ate Deedee’s engagement ring, but no serious danger. At a cost of $300, Dr. Miyo Murtagh at Friendship Animal Hospital in Washington, DC took an x-ray to confirm Luciano had eaten the ring. But it was Deedee’s job to get the ring back for her wedding by searching through many of Luciano’s “deposits.” (Photo Credit: © Nancy Glass Productions)Washington, DC: Luciano’s profile with the engagement ring showing up in the x-ray. (Photo Credit: © Nancy Glass Productions)Video “Lola the Underwear Eater”
My Dog Ate What? Fish Hooks, Spoons, and Coins
Tuesday, May 11 at 10pm ET/PTDogs’ sense of smell is incredibly stronger than humans’. When Milo, a black Labrador retriever, gets a whiff of sweet ham while on a walk in Central Park, he runs off in search of the juicy treat. What looked like ham and rosemary was actually a piece of meat with pins in it. Milo is rushed to the vet and must undergo emergency surgery. In the care of a great vet, Milo is able to make a full recovery. But a question still remains — why would pins be inserted into a piece of meat? It is later discovered that the meat was not ham, but a cow tongue with pins! News crews and New York City detectives rush to Central Park to investigate and find that the act is a Santeria ritual, more specifically a voodoo curse! The case remains unsolved as to the reason for the ritual.Anaheim, CA USA: Bogie was adopted from a rescue group last year. The two-year-old Saint Bernard started having seizures soon after. The vet diagnosed Bogie with epilepsy. The seizures were quickly under control with medicine. However, when Mike’s son, was giving Bogie his epilepsy medicine one day, Bogie ate the medicine and the spoon it was on. Dr. Kathleen Johnson at Yorba Regional Animal Hospital in Anaheim, California performed surgery on Bogie at a cost of $2000 (Photo Credit: © Nancy Glass Productions)Anaheim, CA: The x-ray of the spoon Bogie, a two-year-old Saint Bernard with epilepsy, ingested. One day when Bogie was taking his epilepsy medicine , he in
gested the spoon the medicine was on. Dr. Kathleen Johnson at Yorba Regional Animal Hospital in Anaheim, California performed surgery on Bogie at a cost of $2000. (Photo Credit: © Nancy Glass Productions)My Dog Ate What? Thongs, Pacifiers, and $800Tuesday, May 18 at 10pm ET/PTYellow Labrador Riley gulps down a skewered corncob. Marley, the entertaining Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, eats a few pairs of thong underwear. Pablo, the imposing Bull Mastiff, manages to swallow his entire five-foot leather leash. Branson the Bulldog takes down an amazing 27 pacifiers from his family’s triplet boys. When love comes before money, Bonnie the Rottweiler undergoes surgery that cost thousands. And Joe the chocolate Lab eats a very high-priced meal of actual dollar bills.Los Angeles, CA USA: Branson being examined at the vet’s office. He ate 27 pacifiers. Dr. Heather Mineo at Animal Critical Care and Internal Medicine in Tustin, California performed surgery to remove the pacifiers. (Photo Credit: © Nancy Glass Productions)
Dover, PA USA: The $800 that Joe Pa ate. Dr. Kate Brammer at Animal Emergency and Referral Center in York, Pennsylvania induced vomiting to get the money back at a cost of $130. (Photo Credit: © Nancy Glass Productions)
And one more note coming up after the jump.
On Thursday, National Geographic Channel brings back “World’s Toughest Fixes” for another season. Sean Riley looks at some of the largest structures that require repair and the approaches to doing them. It’s great stuff. Here’s a look at Thursday’s show as well as shows coming up in the next few weeks.
WORLD’S TOUGHEST FIXES: ROCKY MOUNTAIN RIGGINGThursday, May 6 at 9PM ET/PT“If you think riding a ski lift is scary, you should try building one!” – Sean RileyRiley’s headed to the Wild West … just outside Yellowstone Park near Cody, Wyo., to rebuild one of the first ski lifts in the country. The project is a on a tight budget and racing against a deadline, so it’s forced to refurbish lift pieces from around the nation to get the new lift up and running before ski season. Riley joins cowboys of the ski lift industry to rehab 10 towers from piles of used parts. Building just outside of picturesque Yellowstone in the rugged backcountry presents additional challenges. To get several of the towers up the mountain, the guys bring in a special helicopter to crane the materials into place. It’s an incredibly delicate operation. Tons of steel will be flying overhead, and the team will guide each piece into place. One wrong move could have these guys “wiping out.”A waterfall and other natural attractions of Cody, Wyoming. The beautiful scenery brings tourist from around the nation. (Photo credit: © National Geographic Television)Video “Recycled Ski Lift” – In Cody, WY, Sean Riley helps resurrect a ski lift out of the spare parts of retired lifts from around the country.
WORLD’S TOUGHEST FIXES: EXTREME BRIDGESThursday, May 13 at 9PM ET/PT“…these guys have, you know, balls like gorillas and they get the job done.” – Sean RileyLondon, England: Below on the Tower Bridge, traffic continues with business as usual while the crew above works diligently. (Photo credit: © National Geographic Television)Riley crosses the pond to scale three iconic bridges in the U.K. The famed Tower Bridge in London is being restored, and the lead paint being stripped must be contained. Riley dons his protection suit and arms himself with the most terrifying paint stripper he’s ever seen, a blaster that shoots grit at a pulverizing 250 miles per hour! In Scotland, he’ll construct scaffolding at the top of the Forth Bridge, a vertigo-inducing 367 feet over the water! Just upriver, he helps implement an experimental technique to prevent a suspension bridge from collapsing. This is not just an extreme fix for Riley, but also an extreme shoot for the WTF cameraman, who bravely walks a precarious path down a suspension wire with 50 pounds of camera gear.Video “Snapping Suspension Bridge” – Sean Riley visits engineers working high in the sky to save the Fourth Road Bridge connecting Scotland to the rest of the UK.
Video “Sky High Bridge Fixes” – It takes a special kind of worker to repair UK bridges from hundreds of feet in the air.
WORLD’S TOUGHEST FIXES: FIXING VEGASThursday, May 20 at 9PM ET/PT“As a rigger, these are my favorite kind of jobs – that combine the soft science of art and the hard science of physics.” – Sean Riley
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States: Riley and Ka’s Technical Di
rector Erik Walstad testing out the sand cliff deck. (Photo Credit: (c) NGT)Riley travels to Las Vegas to help high-flying Cirque du Soleil solve a real showstopper of a problem … one of the world’s largest, most technologically advanced stages is broken. To make the repair, Riley and team have to lower the 80-ton stage and take a look inside — a process never before attempted. While in Sin City, Riley helps repair some of most amazing spectacles on the Strip, including the world’s largest video screen (four blocks long!) and high-tech water cannons in the Bellagio fountain. For these men and women, failure is not an option. The show must go on!WORLD’S TOUGHEST FIXES: EXTREME HEIGHTSThursday, May 27 at 9PM ET/PT“It takes a special breed of person to work all the way up here. You’ve got to be part tradesman, part acrobat and just a little bit crazy.” – Sean RileySean Riley is an expert rigger, but in this episode he is going to new heights.He’ll hang over the edge of Las Vegas’ tallest building to fix the X-Scream, a thrill ride on the Stratosphere. One of the critical safety measures needs replacing, and Riley joins the ride’s head of maintenance on the very edge of the track, 800 feet above the ground, to make the fix. Then he’ll dangle 500 feet over the side of the Hoover Dam to retrieve trash. And just upriver from Niagara Falls, he’ll hang over an unstable, overgrown cliff to eliminate loose rocks. This is truly a job where you don’t want to find yourself between a rock and a hard place.WORLD’S TOUGHEST FIXES: CRUISE SHIP OVERHAULThursday, June 3 at 9PM ET/PT“This is the witching hour of rigging, when all things conspire to get someone hurt.” – Sean RileySan Francisco, CA: A tarp covers work being done on the Sea Princess. The Sea Princess is a luxury liner with a leaky seal that workers are trying to find before the ship has to go back to sea in 15 days. (Photo credit: © National Geographic Television)An 856-foot-long luxury ship is taking on water, and no one knows exactly why. Riley heads to San Francisco Bay, where a team of specialists have just 15 days to pull this mega-ship out of the water, tear it apart, dive into its belly and find the leak. They’ll need to work around the clock, because in just two weeks more than 2,000 paid guests arrive for the vacation of a lifetime! Reputations and a boatload of money are on the line.WORLD’S TOUGHEST FIXES: PHILLY MEGA TRANSITThursday, June 10 at 9PM ET/PT“You touch the cable on the far side of that insulator, you’ll get the full voltage through your body.” – Sean RileyPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania: Workers repairing subway track for the SEPTA (South Eastern Pennsylvania Transport Authority) system. Many repairs are done on track during the “Night Owl” shift. (Photo credit: © National Geographic Television)All aboard! WTF rides the rails in the City of Brotherly Love. While there, Riley teams up with crews of the nation’s fifth largest public transportation system, Philadelphia’s SEPTA, to find out what it takes to keep 2,200 miles of tracks safely running. Every day, more than one million people use this system, and a critical malfunction could literally bring the city to a screeching halt. The team must replace a three-mile section of 80-year-old high-voltage wire. It’s a risky operation, with live wires just an arm’s reach away. Then, Riley heads to the garage to work on a train with a malfunctioning automatic control system.WORLD’S TOUGHEST FIXES: SAN FRANCISCO BAY BRIDGEThursday, June 17 at 9PM ET/PT“It’s basically bridge bypass surgery…and this is one of the toughest patient’s anyone’s ever handled.” – Sean RileyThe Bay Bridge, San Francisco, CA, USA: Harnessed atop the Bay Bridge, cameraman Eric Cochran films Sean Riley walking across the western span. (Photo Credit © NGT)The Bay Bridge joining Oakland and San Francisco made headlines in 2009 when it was shut down for a major renovation. To make the fix, Riley joins the engineering team tasked with cutting a football field-sized section of roadway from the bridge and replacing it…in just 72 hours! With traffic halted and the world watching, the team encounters some unexpected challenges. A crack puts the operation on hold and requires custom-made colossal steel brackets. The clock is ticking amid fears of gridlock. Will they get this vital transportation link up and running in time for the morning commute?
Tremendous stuff. I love the show and look forward to seeing this again.
