This Week's Animal Welfare Must-See TV

On Wednesday, April 21st, settle in with your faithful dog and your favorite organic vegan snacks for a great PBS lineup. It starts at 8 p.m. ET, with Through a Dog's Eyes, a documentary on service dogs, followed at 9 p.m. ET by Food, Inc., a look inside America's food industry. Animal welfare issues continue on the small screen the next day with Oprah's Earth Day guest from The Cove.

Through a Dog's Eyes follows Canine Assistants, one of the nation's largest service dog organizations, through the process of training and placing service dogs. The same behaviors that may be a game of fetch or a favorite trick in your household become empowering, life-altering and, at times, life-saving assistance for the recipients of these special companions.

Just because these dogs have a job to do, it doesn't mean that their relationship is all business. The bonding experience is critical to making these relationships last ... and sometimes they fail. Jennifer Arnold, founder of Canine Assistants, takes viewers through the intense, and sometimes nerve-wracking, experience of playing matchmaker between service dogs and their potential families.

Food, Inc. is the Oscar-nominated documentary that exposes the underbelly of our nation's food system, where health is sacrificed in the name of profit. The film features interviews with some of the heavy hitters of the sustainable food movement, including Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma (among other titles), and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation.

A lot of ground is covered by Food, Inc., from the obesity epidemic to genetically modified crops. But it's impossible to talk about the industrialization of food without talking about factory farms and the harsh side effects — for both animals and humans — of the mass-production of meat and other animal products. As the PBS website says, this movie reveals "shocking truths about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here."

On Earth Day, April 22nd, the documentary that beat out Food, Inc. at the Oscars will be the topic of discussion on Oprah. The influential daytime talk show host (and narrator of the Discovery Channel's acclaimed Life series) will be interviewing Fisher Stevens, producer of The Cove. Oprah has often used Earth Day to raise awareness about environmental issues, and this year the dolphins in Japan are lucky enough to be in her spotlight.

The Cove follows Flipper-trainer-turned-dolphin-activist Ric O'Barry through his campaign to stop the slaughter of thousands of dolphins every year by a coastal village in Japan. The film didn't just bring the issue to light and stop there. In addition to Stevens' TV appearances, the movie's director, Louis Psihoyos, was involved in a sting that busted a sushi restaurant for serving endangered whale meat.

The movie also inspired a dolphin broker to give up his trade. Chris Porter, who has made his living capturing dolphins and selling them to aquariums, no longer wants to be a part of the industry. (He had also once worked with Tilikum, the orca who was responsible for the recent death of a SeaWorld trainer.) His "Free the Pod" program to release his 17 bottlenose dolphins back into the wild may be filmed for a future show on Animal Planet.

We'll have to stay tuned to see how that turns out, but in the meantime, there's plenty on TV in the next couple of days to keep animal lovers entertained.