Television for dog potatoes

Television for dog potatoes

When your dog is forced to watch fake paranormal investigator shows, he gets bored.

When he gets bored, he forces you to take him for a walk.

When you take him for a walk, you end up at the monkey house at the zoo.

When you end up at the monkey house, the monkeys take pity on your bored dog.

And when monkeys take pity on your bored dog, they overthrow human civilization using mind-controlled robot arms.

Don’t let monkeys overthrow human civilization using mind-controlled robot arms. Get rid of stupid human reality shows and switch to DogTV.

Here’s the “thinking” behind the first television network for (and possibly by) dogs.

1) Programming comes in 3-6 minute chunks of “relaxation”, “stimulation” and “exposure” videos. And clearly nothing will keep your dog from destroying the furniture quite like being relaxed for 6 minutes right before 6 minutes of stimulation. (Fun science experiment: Try this with your children, right before bed, to calibrate the amount of furniture damage to be expected.)

2) The company states that “The dog-approved programming content was created to entertain, relax and stimulate stay-at-home dogs.” The article makes no mention of the analytical methods used to determine how much dogs approve of videos.

3) I disapprove of the antiquated soft bigotry of assuming that the audience will be “stay-at-home” dogs. Dogs in the 21st Century can have vibrant, fulfilling careers riding on fire trucks, walking in front of blind people, and mauling junkyard visitors. Doesn’t Fido or Fifi deserve 3-6 minutes of relaxation after a hard day of Iditaroding?

4) Based on a study by the American Kennel Club and the IAMS dog food company, “nearly half of dog owners said their pets showed “some interest” in what was happening on the TV screen”. Note that more than half of dog owners indicated that dogs don’t watch TV. And this is not nearly half of all dogs. No dogs were actually polled.

(Disclaimer: Dogs have a very acute sense of smell, and therefore do not like to answer a lot of questions from strangers.)

5) Media insiders expect that within 6-12 months, DogTV will abandon its programming lineup of dog surfing videos (pictured above) for wall-to-wall coverage of the AKC Westminster Dog Show, sponsored by IAMS.

6) Scientists in canine genetics estimate the dogs are approximately 850,000 years away from evolving the opposable thumbs necessary to hold a TV remote. This will be an obstacle to total market penetration unless dogs have the assistance of mind-controlled robot arms. (Disclaimer: Monkey overlords are not big on sharing.)

(Click on the picture to read the original article.)

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