I had taken a break from the fb group because well, it is pretty exhausting, however I came across these replies from the dog trainer on this post https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Ch8xUHpx3/
Like what does that even mean, "working the dog". And she keeps throwing shade to John with that tidbit "unlike in the past"... what the actual fuck Sherri 🙄😒 so now John didn't check on Diesel or touched him!?
(Tumblr needs to take the delete button away from the Answer button because I've almost accidentally clicked on that like a dozen times.)
Luke Roberts' lack of bond with Dillon is not only an observation but it's the prevalent fandom opinion, and for a good reason. She can't change it by saying they work well together. That may or may not be true (and obviously at this point I'm not willing to take her word for it) but the result on-screen does not reflect it.
"A true bond through communication" which is not... visible. So, by her insinuations, John Reardon, who according to her did not have a true bond with Diesel, did better at acting like he had one on screen than Roberts who by her words is better at this than John Reardon? Does that make sense to anyone? Yes, we all know about leads who have great on-screen chemistry and can't even share a room off-screen, but when it comes to sharing a screen with a dog, things are quite different. Even people like me who have never had a dog are able to tell that. Once again, Sherri Davis is trying to take advantage of her profession as an expert on dog behavior (if she even is one) to gaslight the audience.
And by the way, fans are stating something very clearly in these comments and the initial post:
The show is sterile. The show is devoid of connection, and it presents an unbalanced partnership, which in the past was never problematic. And then comes Sherri Davis, gaslighter extraordinaire, to twist the argument. And now she talks about realism, saying that Mark is "actually working the dog" which I assume means that Rex is working as a K-9, which would be somewhat true at least in Mark's commands (introduced in S7) if this was a K-9 unit, which is not, and if the show is at all realistic, which it's not. She's claiming that while working on a show that is the Hallmark of cop shows, with a premise that works purely when the show anthropomorphizes the dog.
If realism mattered, they'd have shown Mark struggling to bond with Rex for MONTHS after Charlie's demise. They'd have shown Rex refusing commands, showing stress, sleeping poorly, acting out. They did none of these things. Instead Mark shows up and Rex is like "Yay! New dad". Where was that realism then, Ms. Davis?
If realism mattered, the show wouldn't exist in the first place, because canines don't investigate with detectives, the are certainly not a part of a homicide unit, and they are rarely being let off their leash when they're working, much less allowed to process a scene unsupervised. But sure, let's claim realism to try to prove to user Wendy Martin that Luke Roberts is better than John Reardon.
To be clear, none of this is OP's (on Facebook) mistake. OP is expressing an opinion, and is not against Luke Roberts' acting either because after Sherri Davis' cult attacked OP, she had to clarify her position.
So, if it's not a critique on anyone in general, why is Sherri Davis in such a defensive mode (again)? Well, because she doesn't care about the criticism as feedback, she cares that people say "I don't like it" which people have every right to say, and clearly Sherri Davis has forgotten that.
"He is actually doing it right" - Do you mean to say that y'all were trying to teach John Reardon dog commands and he wouldn't "get them", or that in S7 you came up with this idiotic idea to differentiate Mark from Charlie by having Mark have a past with K9 handling and introduce dog commands (some of them inexplicably in German) to the show that no one cares about and are actually making Rex seem like a subordinate, not a partner, and they make it seem like they don't have the rapport and camaraderie that Charlie had with Rex? Once again, viewers are saying what doesn't work for them, and Davis' response is "No, it's supposed to be like that". IT DOESN'T WORK!
And at this point I'll remind everyone that John Reardon was always meant to portray a character with NO experience on dog handling who mostly learned intuitively how to command Rex. That was the initial premise, not only for Hudson and Rex, but also for Kommissar Rex. "Recently divorced cop becomes accidental dog dad". That's the fucking show. So no, Charlie was never a handler so he did not have to learn dog commands, but now Sherri Davis is presenting "dog commands" like an advantage that Luke Roberts somehow has over John Reardon? Once again, she's trying to rewrite history.
Not to mention that on the same post someone commented (mistakenly) that John Reardon's father had trained dogs and Sherri Davis has replied with "???", "Wrong", "WRONG" three times.
Yes, this is misinformation and it can be addressed as such, but is this the proper way to correct it? More than that, she's left misinformation lying around about cast who is still a part of the production, like Mayko Nguyen, but she feels the need to correct this person about ex cast because... oh yeah, because they're actually posing a narrative that makes John Reardon a better candidate than Luke Roberts. That's why.
And he is a better candidate. What Rikki Ross is saying here is fully false, John Reardon would have mentioned such a thing, the production would have also mentioned it as the reason for initially hiring him. I believe he's mentioned his parents' professions and while I don't fully remember what they do, neither are relevant to dog handling. What he's said in interviews is that he grew up around dogs and he even spent an interview detailing the breeds of dogs he grew up with, details about their behavior, and mentioned that they were "part of the family".
Now, Sherri Davis herself said on The Toronto Star that Luke Roberts told her he never owned a dog, and that he'd just dog sit a few times for friends. And she gave her approval (she actually makes it a very big deal in the interview that he had to get her approval) for this actor to get a role in which he'd have to have a past with being a K9 handler in the army, so being comfortable around dogs is a must. Imagine how desperate these people are to try to make that sound like a remotely good idea. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic.
PS: She should stop trying to prove that Luke Roberts is better, in my opinion. Because if Luke Roberts is actually better than John Reardon and most of the critique now is "I don't like the partnership" then that leaves her as the weakest link.
PPS: We have ten minutes of interview footage from 2023 where Diesel is literally melded into John Reardon's ribcage like he's trying to return to the womb, and John Reardon is also very tactile with him. I don't know, I think that guy must have done something right.