Paul O'Grady breaks 'canine contract' for new show

Paul O'Grady breaks 'canine contract' for new show
Paul O'Grady breaks 'canine contract' for new show

TV star Paul O'Grady has told how he broke his self-imposed contract on his new TV show For The Love Of Dogs. The entertainer says he insisted on a clause forbidding him from taking home an animal when filming the ITV1 documentary, which was filmed in Battersea Dogs And Cats Home. Paul, who already has three rescue dogs on his Kent farm, as well as 18 sheep, 12 pigs, two goats, ducks, chickens and barn owls, said: "It went in my contract - under no circumstances was I allowed to go home with anything: two-legged, four-legged, three-legged, anything. "I knew it would be fatal. It'd be like putting an ex-drug addict in a cocaine factory." But he told the Radio Times that he could not resist taking home Eddie, a Chihuahua/Jack Russell cross, on the final day of filming. "We were filming these puppies. I'd been told they'd all been homed and then this little fellow came skipping out. He was the only one who didn't have a home," he said. "I said, 'I'll have him'. That was the very last day of filming. I'd held out until then. God help me if we get another series..."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.