TV review: The Wonder of Dogs

It first struck me when I switched on the digital music station Birdsong. People were switching on the radio and letting bird sounds into their lives, filling their kitchens with nothing but twittering, chirruping and squawking.

Then, I clocked an episode of Eastenders. It dripped with sheer, unadulterated misery, with violence, and with mean-spiritedness. Worst of all, it allowed Ian Beale into my home.

Why, I thought, don't they just make a channel which broadcasts a field full of dogs? It would be satisfying, calming, and funny. It would contain conflict (admittedly, mostly based around the main protagonists biting each others' ears), camaraderie, and characters you could really warm to.

But it seems that before I had the chance to get my quill and ink out and scribble a letter to Points of View, the BBC beat me to the punch with The Wonder of Dogs.

The dog is one of the most varied species on earth, and in this new BBC2 mini-series, Kate Humble and Steve Leonard set about discovering how one wolf species become every Briton's best friend.

The output of the BBC's comedy department had been somewhat lacking of late, and their commissioning editor could well benefit from tuning into this warm-hearted programme – I laughed almost the whole way through.

The Wonder of Dogs attempted to provide reasons for a number of the characteristic behaviours and habits of canine-kind.

All dogs, large and small, have basically the same bone structure, we learned.

They have no shoulder blades which creates the fluid movement of their running, although greyhounds run differently, as their long, flexible spine allows their back legs to overtake their front pair, so they are airborne twice per cycle of movement.

There's no doubt whatsoever that all dogs are descended from grey wolves, we were told, after packs began to move towards human camps 15 to 16,000 years ago.

Poodles, the programme says, were bred and given their preposterous, powdered wig haircuts to make them all the more effective as hunters. We learned that Winston Churchill had a poodle called Rufus, despite the long-held association with the snub-nosed, overbred bulldog breed.

We saw dogs shaking off water droplets in super-slow motion, running between slalom poles, also in slow-mo, and friendship developing between Boris, the towering mastiff with slobber and jowels hanging about his big old face, and scrawny wee Chihuahua Dudley, who at under a kilogramme weighs less than a standard sized bag of flour.

We didn't discover why they decide to stand right next to you before they shake all the muddy water off, or why when they see a dead seal on the beach, their instinct is to roll in it. I'm sure that's one for future weeks – I've been curious for years.

The Wonder of Dogs repeatedly returned to Kate and Steve meeting the dog population of the village of Brightwell in Oxfordshire.

They performed DNA tests, showed off the individual traits of different breeds, and attempted to put a scientific veneer on their various dog hypotheses.

Ultimately, though, it's all pretty much a platform for showing off dogs at their raucous, rascally best.

A word, also, for a segment which saw dozens of golden retrievers gathered together in their familial seat on an estate in Scotland. Seeing a huge crowd of these mad-eyed mutts, their tongues lolling happily out of their mouths, was as satisfying a moment of television as I've seen all year.

The Wonder of Dogs is mentally unchallenging, but utterly rewarding. And that, after all, is a dog's character all over.