PARKERSBURG - Area residents who tune into the National Geographic channel Friday will be able to see what happened to two local pooches that were rescued from a so-called local puppy mill last summer.

Parker, a dachshund, and Barney, a Shih-tzu, were among the hundreds of dogs rescued from The Whispering Oaks Kennel. They will be featured on a 10 p.m. episode of "DogTown" on the National Geographic Channel.

Barney and Parker, who is named for Parkersburg, had serious medical problems and were taken under the care of the Best Friends Animal Society, one of the organizations that responded to the area to help remove the dogs from the kennel. Best Friends is a large animal rights organization that operates a massive no-kill sanctuary in Utah, said Carrie Roe, president of the board of directors of the Humane Society of Parkersburg. DogTown is part of the sanctuary.

"It started because Best Friends was one of the first organizations I contacted last year when we were trying to prepare for what we thought might be this puppy mill rescue. They sent a team out to help with care of the animals in the emergency shelter. They run a huge animal sanctuary in Utah and have a lot of experience dealing with these kinds of things," Roe said.

Roe said it was obvious even early on that Best Friends was better equipped to care for Parker and Barney, so local officials allowed the group to take them.

"They have full-time vets on staff at Best Friends. They offered early on that if there were animals with special problems that needed medical treatment, they would take them because they could afford to give them the care they needed," Roe said.

According to an overview of Friday's episode on the National Geographic Web site, the episode will document dog care manager Michelle Besmehn's "travels to Parkersburg to bring back several dogs rescued from a mass breeding operation."

Roe said the episode will also chronicle the dogs' lives after the puppy mill. She said all of Parker's teeth had to be removed due to rot and infection, and Barney had painful sores on his paws from living in a wire cage that required medical treatment and rehabilitation.

"At DogTown, both dogs require extensive medical care and socialization before they can go to permanent homes," according to the episode overview.

Roe said some of the footage for the episode was filmed while the dogs were in the emergency shelter set up after the puppy mill was dismantled.

"At some point, they thought it would be worthwhile to send their film crew and producer to our location to kind of record what was going on. At the time, we didn't know and they didn't know that it would be a segment. Apparently they decided that it should be," Roe said.

Roe said she believes the episode will help continue the ongoing effort to educate people about the horrors of puppy mills.

"I hope it further educates people as to what puppy mills are about and where dogs in pet stores come from. They're not coming from nice little family homes with a mother dog and puppies in the living room. That's not where dogs sold in pet stores originate. That's the No. 1 thing I hope people get from this," she said.

In addition, Roe said area residents who helped with the rescue effort will be interested to know what happened to some of the residents of the mill after they were rescued. She said she knows that Parker was adopted by a family in Florida, but she's still excited to hear the details of their lives after the misery of the puppy mill.

"Obviously, I'm really excited to see how our dogs are doing. I know a little about what happened to them since they left us. I think it's really important to know they left Parkersburg and are out there being taken care of and finding new homes. It will be nice for local people to get to see a happy ending, too."