Phony "Bad" Dog Videos

While waiting for the air conditioning installers to finish putting in our new system, I was channel surfing during a time of day when I usually wouldn't be watching television. I came across the Animal Planet channel.  On it was a show titled "Bad Dog".  It was one of those cutesy home video shows that pet lovers are supposed to watch and get bowled over by the adorable antics of other people's little animal possessions.  The particular episode I was watching showed dogs supposedly behaving very lazily.  But after seeing just a couple of the videos, I disgustedly switched channels...

One video showed a bulldog that was into watching TV.  Sitting on the sofa.  Like a person sits.  Wearing clothes.  With the remote by its side. Bad, lazy, silly dog.  Another video showed a different "lazy" dog lying on the floor, with dry dog food morsels spread around its head.  In this clip, the dog just moved its head around to snap up the nearest morsels while continuing to lie on its side.  Wow, what a bad, lazy, silly dog (too).

In the first video, the unbelievably compliant dog suffered through the indignity of being dressed and unnaturally set up for a contrived video.  The second was equally contrived.  The whole show, it seems, is an exercise in pet owners drumming up different angles of portraying their "property" in silly situations.  Ha-ha, what a blast...NOT.

Of course, I'm sure that the dog owners here really, truly love their animals and care well for them.  But seeing dogs presented this way still makes me sympathetic to a degree with PETA's often extreme objections to animals being used in shows for human entertainment.  Sure, there's no abuse here...but it sure as all ain't funny, at least where I'm coming from...