Greatest American Dog—Episode 7

PUPPIES! That about sums up this week’s episode. Each week the challenges seem to get worse and worse. I think the challenge writers were experiencing some writers’ block and solved it the way all problems should be solved—with lots and lots of cute PUPPIES!

Cute overload!

Even the dog bone challenge seemed kind of bizarre. The theme for this week was rescue. Maybe Beth Joy misunderstood because she kept talking about how Bella is a rescue dog. Here at Tails we are all about rescue dogs, but Beth Joy makes it seem all rescue dogs have “issues” and are hard to train. Doesn’t make you want to go out and adopt one. Yes, there are dogs that came from rough situations and have “issues” to get over, but there are also so many loving dogs that just want a home. I wonder if all the other dogs in the competition came from breeders or pet stores? But I digress…

With Beth Joy and Bella gone (finally) I wondered who was going to bring the drama to the show in the future. I think this week’s episode gave us the answer—the judges! A fight erupted between the two female judges over training methods. I’m a big fan of Victoria Stilwell and her show, It’s Me or the Dog. I tend to agree with her when it comes to training questions. One thing I couldn’t help notice was that she kept mentioning how things are done “in this country”. Isn’t she from the UK?…

What method of training do you think is best—treats/positive reinforcement or the dominance-submission method?

I got a little nervous seeing Bill and Star in the final three for the first time. Star didn’t do her best work, but then again, the challenge seemed kind of bogus. The dogs had to lead three puppies through a maze. If I understand it correctly, each dog led three different puppies. I think a lot depended on the puppies, whether they were the type that wanted to hang out and play or wanted to follow the leader. Yes, Leroy is a herding dog so maybe this comes naturally to him, but it just seemed like the puppies were chasing him for fun. I guess all that matters is Bill and Star are still in the game. I’m so glad they won the dog bone challenge and Bill was able to speak to his wife. What a precious moment.

Next week’s challenge? Doggy zip line. Help.