My Dog Can Fly – The latest installment in the Greatest American Dog show on CBS!
After last week’s episode, the contestants immediately start trashing talking about Beth Joy .. including Laurie saying she was “one of the craziest roommates from day one” … that’s saying alot when you consider the depth of crazy that we’ve displayed since the beginning of the season.
Right off the bat in this week’s episode it elicits a Holy Smokes! They are going to have to deal with an elephant in the Dog Bone Challenge …. as they introduce Suzy the 9000 pound African elephant, the dogs immediately start barking up storm. This challenge is going to test the dog AND the owner’s bravery.
It’s a big game of chicken to see which dog will listen to commands to stay sitting in a circle while the elephants walks up, trumpets a big blast hoping to scare the dog .. and then takes the banana sitting directly in front of the dog.
Leroy immediately barks and flinches as is quickly eliminated, but second up on the list is Andrew the tiny little Maltese ……. who impressively just stares up at the behemoth and doesn’t even blink! The strategy for both Star and Galaxy was to have them watch their owners Bill and JD respectively, instead of keeping an eye on the elephant coming at them. In the end they both looked at Suzy & flinched away when the big blast came.
Presley the high energy boxer took some serious coaxing from Travis to stay in the circle so we end up with a tie with Andrew. So off to a tie breaker we go — this time the elephant charges instead of walks down the runway with both dogs sitting in the circle, each owner is facing away from the elephant and can’t see where it is. Whichever dog flinches first and moves out of the circle loses.
With ice-water in his veins, Andrew sits there staring down the big beast!
After winning the Dog Bone Suite .. Laurie actually shows some real emotion beyond just the simple cut throat competitor we’ve come to know.
Best in Show Challenge is called Stunt Dog … And the Leg Up is the use of a professional TV&Movie Stunt Dog Trainer Tom Roach, who has worked on CSI Miami, Criminal Minds, even Spiderman III. This certainly better than some of the other ridiculous Leg Ups in the past.
The contestants are rather fazed by the fact that the last leg of the obstacle course, the dogs will be harnessed in and the owners will command them to jump from the scaffold and fly along the zip line. Laurie is heard to ask, “how do you get your dog to jump into nothing!?!” …. It’s a serious leap of faith for the dogs.
Our esteemed judges Victoria Stilwell, Wendy Diamond and her dog Lucky, …… and Hey Nice Hat Alan Reznik!
The competitors walk out to view the real course for the first time and are simply blown away by how high these obstacles are, and how far and high the zip line is.
The competition begins and as usual JD has Galaxy instantly are achieving the objectives, and she is actually wagging her tail as she flies on down to the end of the course.
Next up as usual, Leroy is yipping and barking his displeasure as usual but in the end leaps off the scaffold and glides on in.
Bill decides to have Star go up the less steep ramp of the two options, and then as she crosses the high beam she is cautiously glancing down from side to side walking across to the zip platform. Unfortunately, that is as far as she goes. I sure Bill was conscious of the criticism he took last week for pushing Star too hard, so he bailed on the dive on the line.
Presley makes it through the obstacles but wasn’t nearly as graceful as Galaxy was on the “flight” as his legs and backend are twitching and twisting all the way down.
Andrew was at a disadvantage since the remaining dogs are so much bigger than he is .. but alas, he did not fly on the zip line as well.
Now it greats really hard to eliminate any of these dogs since they have each performed admirably throughout the competition, and each has their own strong points and weaknesses. Travis and Presley seem to have been getting set via editing by the producers as they have shown clips of the other competitors praising how much they have learned since being at the house, and how Travis is like a sponge trying to soak up dog training tips.
Oh Oh, before the Best in Show judging we have an injury to Galaxy. She demonstrates a little limping that is enough to call in the medical staff, but everything seems to check out ok and they give her the okay to continue. This will need to be watched as a development for the future of this competition……
The bottom three this week are Bill & Star, Travis & Presley and Laurie and Andrew.
That tricky little devil of a host Jarod Miller plays right into our expectations and for the very first time in the history of the show announces “Travis and Presley .. You are NOT leaving Canine Academy” … Oh a little tomfoolery to keep us viewers on our toes.
So, as sad as it is to see it’s the end of the line for Bill and Star the lovable orange dog. This one even got to the judges – as Victoria yells out “we love you Bill” as they take their final laps.
