Dog the Bounty Hunter

On August 31, 2004 A & E began broadcasting the reality show Dog the Bounty Hunter. This unscripted series follows the real life and sometimes tumultuous day-to-day happenings of honest to goodness true life, not to mention legendary, bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman.

The show chronicles the life of Dog, 51 and his wife Beth, 34 who is also his business partner and their twelve children. Dog the Bounty Hunter attempts to show Dog as he is in both his personal as well as professional life and how he manages to balance the ups and downs of both aspects of his world. No stone is left unturned in Dog the Bounty Hunter. There are exciting scenes of people on the run but also more relaxed heartwarming moments when Dog and Beth sit talking at the table or can be seen reading one of their children a bedtime story before tucking him or her in for the night.

Duane “Dog” Chapman the star of Dog the Bounty Hunter, is a former convict himself who was bound and determined to turn his life around and work for the right arm of the law, not the wrong one. Living in Hawaii, Dog is a bounty hunter who has successfully been able to apprehend more than a whopping 6,000 bail jumpers in his career.

Dog entered the spotlight in 2003 when he made his way to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where he was able to track down the famous fugitive Andrew Lustier who was the heir to the Max Factor fortune. The way the story goes, and all this is explained in Dog the Bounty Hunter the series, is that Mister Lustier, who was in the middle of a trial for eighty-six counts of date rape charges, fled the country, thus prompting a high profile international manhunt to track him down. He skipped out on his bond worth $1,000,000 but was convicted in absentia anyway and sentenced to 124 years in prison once he was caught.

Dog the Bounty Hunter and his top notch team, consisting of his brother, one of his adult sons and two cameramen, were successful in their efforts to track down the fugitive but ran into other problems when bystanders, not pleased whatsoever at the events that took place, called the Mexican police and had the whole group brought into custody. Much to his chagrin, Dog the Bounty Hunter and his team were charged with illegal deprivation of liberty and then spent the next few days in jail. Finally when they came before a judge the camera crew was allowed to return home but Dog, his brother and son were held over for trial. However things took a turn for the best when after being held in the Mexican jail for two weeks, the charges were dropped and the three men were granted the right to return to the United States.