Exercise, discipline, affection

The new season of The Dog Whisperer started this week, or at least I think it did because an episode we haven’t seen showed up on the TiVo. Sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around how Leta’s entire notion of television will be completely different than my own because she can pause live shows and watch Sesame Street at any hour of the day. She will never know the agony of racing home at a speed 30 MPH over that which is acceptable by law because Felicity starts at exactly at 8 PM, and the douchebag driving the Ford Taurus in front of her has no idea just how important this episode is, more important than it usually is, and usually it is important enough to turn off the phone and lock the door and threaten to kill your roommate’s unborn children if she so much as moves her lips to form a single sound before the show breaks for commercial. I once threw the remote at my roommate’s face because she sneezed just as Felicity was about to kiss Ben. I am not proud of my rage, but you understand.

Jon and I watched this new Dog Whisperer episode last night, and I realized that this show is the most inadvertently comedic hour on television, simply for the fact that most people don’t realize that they are the human in the relationship they have with their dog. We are frequently rewinding scenes and playing them back in slow motion to watch the moment of recognition people experience when it suddenly dawns on them, holy crap, I HAVE BEEN LIVING WITH A DOG? THAT EXPLAINS SO MUCH, LIKE WHY I CAN’T FIND THE CAT. And then Cesar Millan’s subsequent grin that belies what he is truly feeling, that Americans are — how do you put this delicately — batshit insane.

About two-thirds of the way through the season premiere the show broke for commercial, but not before airing a brief “coming up” snippet of the final case, an angry Maltese who was possessive of his food. The Maltese’s entire body had been dyed hot pink, and its owner was a woman who dressed in nothing but pink clothing — pink dresses, pink pants, pink shoes — and her apartment was decorated in nothing but pink furniture and pink knick knacks including a pink television set and a pink refrigerator. For someone who lives in Los Angeles, this is nothing out of the realm of totally normal.

The voice-over said something like, will Cesar be able to tame this beast? or something equally stupid, because D U H, Cesar always wins. If Jesus Christ had trouble with his dogs he’d call Cesar, and I’m sure he has Cesar on speed-dial just to commiserate with someone over how dumb the human race is. As I forwarded through the commercials Jon shook his head and hoped out loud, “The next segment is going to be 15 seconds long because Cesar is going to walk into that woman’s pink apartment, take one look around and say, ‘I am taking your dog away, and you are going to spend some time in a padded cell.'”