Though one isn’t really blind, and the other isn’t really a guide dog, both actors star in a popular show that debuted this year, “In the Dark.” Playing a promiscuous and irreverent young blind woman who tries to solve her friend’s murder, actress Perry Mattfeld has as her sleuthing partner, “Pretzel,” a Golden Retriever Guide Dog played by “Levi.”

The 13 episode series, inspired in part by the life of Lorri Bernson of Guide Dogs of America who was a consultant on the show, ” was filmed in Toronto. To train Levi for her role as a Guide Dog, Toronto-based dog trainer, Violetta Hessing, owner of V’s Talented Animal Performers, was brought in.  The biggest challenge, Hessing says, was in getting Levi to act like a real guide dog when it came to calming his owner down in stress situations. A happy, energetic dog, Levi was “convinced” to play the role of soothing guide dog with chicken baby food smeared around Mattfield’s neck. Happily, the actress is an animal lover who didn’t mind in the least.

Rules around guide dog behavior when the dog is in its harness are very specific, so Hessing had to train Levi “to act that part” by using the concept of “intelligent disobedience.”  The owner may instruct their dog to go “forward,” but if it’s not safe to proceed, the dog will refuse to follow the command. Levi also had to learn to project certain scene-specific moods, as well as tricks that included limping and jumping out of a window. During filming, vocal cues couldn’t always be given to Levi, so many visual cues done by hand come off camera.

The biggest challenge for the actress was not playing with Levi between takes. “She’s so cute and so lovable,” she said in an interview that appeared in the New York Post. “Everyone on our crew would have to walk by and not pet her [and] that was terrible. I’m the lucky one — I was allowed to interact with her as much as I wanted.”

There were those who were upset with the show for casting an actor dog instead of an actual dog for the blind, but as Lorri Bernson said about the subject, an actual working a guide dog would have misinterpreted multiple takes of a scene in a bad way that might infringe upon the dog’s training. Actor dogs are accustomed to repetition. Also, the decision to not use a certified guide dog meant taking one out of rotation for a person who actually needs the dog.

Levi couldn’t attend the network’s 2019 fall-schedule rollout in Manhattan because his entry papers weren’t in order, mostly because the network finalized its fall schedule too close to the event, and Levi’s handlers didn’t have time to prepare the necessary forms to cross the border.

You can follow Levi on his own Instagram page