Little Dog show creator and star Joel Thomas Hynes on fighting the things that make us feel small

Little Dog might be called a comedy of redemption. Its first season started with Tommy "Little Dog" Ross trying to put his life back together after walking out of a boxing match and spending the next five years drinking a lot and living in a trailer. But when he finally decides to pick himself back up, it seems like events and the people around him are trying to keep him in his place. Both the comedy and the pathos of Little Dog come from the struggle for self-respect in a world that can make us feel small. I sat down with Joel Thomas Hynes, the creator and star of the program, and asked him about the kinds of things that tend to belittle people, and what he does to fight them.

What are some of the things that you think make people feel small?

For men, there are a lot of twisted expectations of what it is to be a man, and not living up to those expectations can be belittling. Men are expected to fight and be violent and, whatever the situation, to pull up your socks and just get on with it. You're not supposed to feel anything or express it or hang on to the past.

We deal with that in Little Dog a lot. Tommy is a boxer and a sensitive soul and he's accomplished a lot. But there's very little sympathy for that from his family who totally diminish and downplay his contributions to the family and some of those scenes are fairly close to home for me.

Why would people close to us ever want to knock us down?

I think a lot of times success can be taken as a threat. This can be true either in a family or, for example, in different arts communities. I've been involved in a lot of them, wherein your success is somebody else's lack of success. And sometimes when you rise up, you try to accomplish something, it threatens people who are either not there yet or won't get there. People like to make sure that you don't get too big for your britches. Thankfully I'm not driven by ego or any kind of perceptions of success or that sort of thing. So I experience it a lot, but I don't go to bed with it.

What do you do to fight back against these belittling forces?

I write. I explore. I shine light into all the dark places that we can't really talk to people about. My father built a massive house with his own two hands, but never let me pick up a hammer, so when I came of age and bought my own house, I was very determined to do all my own work.

Fatherhood for me, is another one of those things. My boy was born when I was still young and kind of messed up and it was kind of drilled into my head that I didn't have the kind of capacity to love like a father should. But I embraced fatherhood with my whole heart and that has put me on a path to a new identity. There are character traits that would have lain dormant my whole life had I not known my boy, and that's probably the best part of my life.

I try and help emerging writers as often as I can. If somebody is struggling to write a book or get a play done, I really enjoy being in a position to give other writers a boost the way I've been given a boost.

Also, in term of not making myself seem small, I've got good friends and good people.

Would you say that helping others is something that can help you feel bigger?

I wouldn't say it's something that makes me feel bigger. It's just something that helps me square up my karma a little bit. I prefer to help elevate other artists rather than to tear them down. I nurture people and tell people that they can because there is an abundance of people who will tell you that you can't. I'm not one of those people and I don't want to be one of those people.

Season 2 of the CBC original comedy premieres Thursday, January 10, 2019 at 9:30 p.m. (10 p.m. NT) on CBC and the CBC Gem streaming service (launching December 2018).