From left, David, Beth Joy, Brandy and Travis compete in the new CBS reality show that pits dogs and their owners against each other in elimination challenges for the title of “Greatest American Dog.”

CBS / MONTY BRINTON

I really, really, really love dogs. I give my three-year-old Westie birthday parties, buy her plane tickets and take her on play dates. I stop owners on the street to fawn over their Bichons and Wheatens and Labs. If I find myself in front of a television on Super Bowl Sunday, I watch Animal Planet’s “Puppy Bowl,” which is essentially a passel of young dogs wandering aimlessly around a playpen designed to look like a football field. It goes on for hours.

So imagine my elation when I learned that CBS was doing a series called Greatest American Dog. I tried to forget that it was a reality show, one of the most hideous, soul-destroying genres ever hatched.

With the fourth episode broadcast last Wednesday (the show has been moved from Thursday nights to Wednesdays at 8 on Channel 12), I am resigned to the producers’ intent to make the series Most Annoying American Dog Owner instead. Clearly somebody was inspired more by Christopher Guest’s comic film Best in Show, a study in human inanity, than by a love of animals.

But the series does offer occasional moments of joy, like the first time Elvis, the scrappy Parson Russell terrier from New York, and Andrew, the silky-haired, 10-pound Maltese from Virginia, play together on the lawn, running their little legs off.

Greatest American Dog assembles a typical roster of contestants, moves them all into a big California house and pits them against one another. Why America chooses to watch television that consistently brings out the worst in people is beyond me, but that seems to be part of the “reality” appeal.

Brandy, a California fashion designer, is positioned as the Omarosa (the villainous contestant from The Apprentice) of the group.

“I won’t tolerate anybody touching my dog,” she announced in the first episode. She also will not let Beacon, her miniature schnauzer, run around with no clothes on. So now that we hate Brandy, it is satisfying when Beacon is the first to be eliminated in doggie musical chairs. And that’s terrible: I don’t want to feel gleeful about a little dog’s failure.

So far, the three judges — hyphenated dog trainers-authors-editors-advocates — appear to be evaluating (and punishing) the humans instead of their pets. The first pair to be eliminated, or “expelled from Canine Academy,” were Michael, an aspiring comic from San Diego, and his Boston terrier, Ezzie. Michael’s crime was taking away attention from Ezzie by doing too well as the host in his team’s Disco Dog skit.

There have been dramas, like the rush to the veterinary clinic of the injured Star, a Brittany spaniel, carried by a genuinely panicked Bill, a self-employed Texan who is positioned as the wide-eyed yokel (“I’ve never been in a place like this”) but manages to come across as a complex, warm human being anyway.

Challenges have included a visit to the imaginary Bone Appetit restaurant, where the dogs are judged on their ability to obey the “leave it” command; a team effort to untangle leashes (boring); a game in which owners predict whether their dogs will pick up or ignore certain objects; and a spirited relay race, in which the dogs catch Frisbees, jump through hoops, run through chutes, find their way through mazes and pull conveyances in which another dog is riding. Note to producers: More of this, please. If you’re hoping to win over doting dog lovers, take the cameras off the owners and point them toward the pets.

In Wednesday’s episode the big challenge was a photo shoot. Each dog had to illustrate a particular quality or emotion. Ron, a California construction manager, figured he had it made when he and his English bulldog, Tillman, drew “lazy.”

The best moments in Greatest American Dog so far are those in which true dogginess or humanity shines through. Two men sit around and complain that Travis, a handsome Los Angeles bartender, is the competition’s golden boy, along with his boxer, Presley, but they do it in a teasing, good-natured way.

And when contestants lose, it’s clear that the owners are crushed, mostly for the sake of their dogs, feeling that the human has let the animal down. Now that’s touching.