It’s difficult enough to do the weather from home when you work for a major metro TV station. How much more difficult is it when your dogs keep getting in the shot? Or, even worse, when someone rings the doorbell during a live forecast?
That’s the situation facing Evan Andrews, the morning meteorologist for Dallas’ Fox station, KDFW. He has been forecasting from home during the coronavirus pandemic, Monday through Friday from 4 to 10 a.m., which had given Penny the chance to flop out on the puppy sofa behind him while Mattie has periodically walked in and out of the shot. And his family’s two cats and tortoise have also been known to wander into the background.
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And yes, the dogs have barked at the front door when they heard the doorbell, adding even more excitement to working from home. Plus, says Evan, they’re almost as noisy on Friday during the weekly garbage pickup. And this doesn’t take into account that the dogs’ on-air barking has set off viewers’ dogs, who bark at the barking they hear from the TV – and which their owners report to Andrews via email and Facebook.
But one must make adjustments during a pandemic.
“It’s a brave new world these days,” says Evan, who has worked for KDFW since 1999. “When we signed up for this, there was no idea we’d be doing this at home, and I had absolutely no idea how it would work out.”
In this, Evan isn’t the only TV reporter, anchor and forecaster who is working from home during the pandemic whose pets have made screen appearances. In Chicago, WFLD entertainment reporter Jake Hamilton shares his spots with a Shepherd mix named Daenerys.
In Tampa Bay, WTVT’s Paul Dellegato put his Golden Retriever, Brodie, on his lap after the dog bumped into a computer during Dellegato’s weather forecast. And Kim Powell, who works for KPHO in Phoenix, didn’t miss a beat when her cat meandered into the shot: “Hi, this is my cat,” she said on air, “that is the perks of working from home.”
But it’s particularly fitting that Evan and his animals have garnered so much attention, including a Reddit post that went viral in April when Penny flopped on the sofa during a forecast. Andrews has been working with SPCA of North Texas and Operation Kindness, a private rescue group, since he came to Dallas, and has been a pet rescue advocate since he started in the TV business in the late 1980s.
“I’m surprised the thing with Penny went viral,” he says, “but I’m not surprised that the dogs have been so popular. Everyone loves animals, and they like to see the animals in the shot. Viewers like to see what our life is like at home.”
Even if it sets their dogs off barking.
Top Photograph: Courtesy of Dallas’ Fox station, KDFW
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