Its Me or the Dog
Well, well, well … here we are with our old dear friend Victoria Stilwell, world renowned dog trainer! You may remember her from the fabulous Season One of The Greatest American Dog. It was reality TV programming at it’s best with a house full of dogs and owners competing to win the coveted title.
Victoria and her judging companions Wendy Diamond and David Reznik were the weekly authorities overseeing the Best in Show Challenges.
Now we have Victoria starring in her very own show on the Animal Planet called It’s Me or the Dog in which she performs acts of heroism similar to the well know Dog Whisperer Cesar Milan.
In the season premiere called The Prince of Chaos we meet Prince, an eleven month old Neapolitan Mastiff who is ripping the house apart, drives away the kids friends and loves to hump any leg that moves. Mom really thinks he’s the cat’s meow and wants to breed him.
Victoria cruises in looking hot in her black Corvette to get Prince in line, and fires off the best line to get the season started – “It’s a ninety pound humping dog, and soon it’s going to be a 150 or 180 pound humping dog!”
She feigns shock and horror at the destruction that Prince has caused when left out on the porch of the house .. which is nothing more than any other puppy would have done. The problem is that he is a very large puppy.
When Angela the dog owner has to leave the house she has been putting Prince in a crate. Victoria asks to see the process, which is a laughingly hilarious wrestling match.
Oh .. Victoria comes down hard on Angela’s plans to breed Prince with the drippingly sarcastic statement, “Right, Great, so you are going to contribute to the pet overpopulation problem in the United States” .. staring Angela down with her piercing pretty brown eyes.
A nice training that she demonstrated was the use of better / warm food to make Prince eat better and get over his anxiety about eating alone. Warming the food releases the scents of the food and made him much more willing to devour the entire meal.
Victoria uses a demonstration for the family regarding neutering. She takes six balls to represent the six puppies that Prince could have with one female. Then she exponentially takes those six puppies and multiplies them out to represent 70,000 dogs in the bloodline of Prince.
She then takes the red balls of the batch to represent the 2,000,000 dogs are euthanized in shelters every year. Then shows the blue balls compare to the 4,000,000 strays on the streets in the US.
One thing drives me crazy in all of these kinds of shows … when they want the viewers to believe that they are looking at a computer screen to watch video, there is absolutely no doubt that it is faked footage superimposed during post production. UGH .. drives me crazy it’s so bad.
Part of the whole reason that this dog was brought into the house was due to a fear of break-ins. Victoria presents the all important Beware of Dog signs to the owner.
Of course, Angela decides to go ahead an have Prince neutered.
And in the final scene we do get to see the success of training Prince when the kids can have friends come by the house and not have them fear for the 150 pound humper!
Well, the show is not as fun as The Greatest American Dog since there is no competition and rooting interest … But at least we have Victoria!
Victoria Stilwell
Resume
- Host of “It’s Me or the Dog“
- Co-founder of Dog Trainers of New York
- Co-founder Dog Trainers of New Jersey
- Co-founder Dog Trainers of Georgia
Author
Groups
- Paws Atlanta
- Stray from the Heart (New York)
- Hong Kong Dog Rescue
- Greyhound Rescue of West England
- Wisconsin Puppy Mill Project
- Waterside Action Group
Certifications
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