#downwarddog #savedownwarddog #abcdownwarddog

They canceled my happy dog show! I;m so sad now. I knew something was up when I noticed they were showing two episodes this week, two hours later than normal. It was not a good sign.

I should have known. I mean, it was  quirky, probably too so. It was a hipster girl in a baby doll dress and window pane glasses cross stitching something rude on a tea towl level of quirky and the hipsters still weren't feeling it.

I mean, I understand. It was supposed to be about a girl and her dog and the girl was almost never with her dog and she did make really questionable choices  about her dog. She left the dog alone with a strange dog in a strangers house and just took off for a few hours and was like whatever, I was agast.  I would have never done that, it was asking for something really bad to happen to either one or both of the dogs or the house or the dogs and the house.

And then she left her adult male dog alone with a baby puppy and I was like why do you want harm to befall the puppy? There is a reason we don't leave adult male dogs alone with very, very young puppies and its not because they cuddle too much. They hurt puppies. they don't like puppies, they are much, much larger than a puppy and they could hurt a puppy too easily. Don't leave an adult dog alone with a very young, very small puppy unsupervised. As it was our hero shoved the puppy down  a flight of stairs.

Another issue that needed to be addressed : Is this show about her workplace and what she does for a living and how she feels about her job and her friends at work OR is it about her dog and her life with him OR is it about her dog and how he feels about her and his version of her life? There was entirely too much going on and it was confusing and muddy, what was the show supposed to be about? Pick a line and got with it.

It did not do a good job balancing these and it shouldn't have had to. My advice would have been to dump the work place and focus on her and the dog significantly more. I am much more invested in the dog than I am in her work mates or any plot involving marketing a women's clothing chain.

I am really hoping it gets picked up on a different network or on a streaming service somewhere because I will really miss the dog.

#Downwarddog

Are you watching #Downwarddog? you should be! Its lovely. Its about a girl and her dog. And the dog talks.

But the dog doesn't talk to her or anyone else in their world or even to other dogs. He talks to us. He doesn't seem to understand his person, although he loves her dearly and she is his world. He also fears that they don't have enough in common.

For example, he loves garbage. Nan, his person, does not love garbage. Over the course of the episode we learn why Martin, our hero, loves garbage and why he also hates garbage and the part of himself that loves garbage.

He remembers his early puppyhood and his Mother and how hard it was for he to feed his puppy brother and sisters and how she had o turn to garbage to feed her litter: They were garbage dogs and that his secret shame. He feels that Nan must know this somehow he was a garbage dog and always dirty and yucky and this is why she hates garbage and probably him too. He is very sad.

He was also out and about and away from his house because Nans stoner ex-boyfriend left the gate  kopen and let him out. he claims he loves Martin, but not enough to keep and eye on him. he seems like a nice guy  and that he really cares about Martin, but when it comes down to it, not nice enough and he doesn't care that much. He's just lucky Martin knows his way home, didn't eat anything  he shouldn't have and didn't get hit by a car on his walkabout. He's kind of an ass really.

Nan, in a parallel story is in NYC for her job, they live, we learn this week in Pittsburgh, and has a freakout in the conference room bathroom and remembers the poverty of her childhood and how it made her always feel dirty and how clean all the people in the conference room clearly had always been - it isn't until her friend and co-worker comes in and gives her a sharp rebuke and tells her to get in the now, right now, that she puts on her big girl panties and makes her presentation and does very well, because she is who she is now and that woman is good at her job.

We learn that she and Martin have more in common than he thinks. At the end, she gives him a nice bath and they learn about themselves but nothing about each because they can't communicate. Which is kind of sad, because we learned this deep things about them as a pair and it goes nowhere. Sad.