Episode five: Things get tricky

Previously on America's Next Top Dog:  Only Zoe and Fredo show for class, which centers on stay and come.  Diane admonishes them to shine at the next class.

This week, again only Zoe and Fredo are in the ring at the start of class.  Diane tells the class that young Sarah will be conducting class while she observes.  Class, as has become the norm, opens with a contest.  The winner will receive immunity from tonight's elimination.  Or maybe just a cookie.  Hard to tell.  First is a "Watch me" contest.  Just as the dogs focus on the treat right in front of their owner's noses, something big falls in the store causing the dogs to break concentration at the same time  Both get a cookie.  Zoe takes "sit."   Fredo takes "settle."  Same as last week.  Zoe's just that much more interested in food than Fredo, who has to divide his love of food with his love of lying down.  Real go-getters, these too.  Just as they go to sit down, Cookie shows up with her owners.  Seriously, she's the cutest thing EVER.  like this, only wiggly:

I mean, you can just see why Benji gave her the pudding cup.

They are, frankly, relieved at having missed the contest.  Cookie really doesn't care so much about treats.

Sarah asks "Who has trouble with their dog jumping on people?"  Zoe's mom sheepishly raises her arm.  Cookie's parents concede that really all she DOES is jump.  Fredo's mom kind of shrugs, it isn't really his problem.  She interviews that bed-pooping, stealing from the trash, and chewing up anything he finds are really his milieu.  Sarah initiates a training in which she goes up to each dog, with a treat, and asks the dog to sit.  If the dog jumps, she walks to the next dog.  If the dog sits, he or she gets a treat.  Zoe and Fredo don't even have to be asked to sit.  They see the treat, they sit.  Cookie gets it after a couple of go arounds, though.  Then Sarah asks Julianna, Fredo's sibling, to stand in the center of the ring and pretend to be meeting each dog for the first time.  She's to say, "May I pet your dog?" and the owner is to say, "Get him to sit first and then pet him under the chin."  Fredo goes first and does fine, since heknows Julianna to be a sit-treat giver.  Zoe does fine because, you know, treats.  Cookie...well, Cookie loves kids.  Especially new ones.  Especially new ones that smell like treats.  Cookie's owner offers Julianna a chicken nugget to tempt Cookie, but she recoils as if he'd offered her a joint.  She interviews that, as a vegetarian, she was horrified.  She is, apparently, unaware that those little compressed bits she's been handing out aren't tofu.  Sarah essentially gives up on Cookie, saying, "Work on this at home."

Sarah tells the owners to work on settle and massaging their dogs while she rambles on about nutrition.  She asks what food the dogs are eating.  Zoe's owner says that she just gives her Purina dog chow b/c she's hungry all the time and she couldn't afford to feed her anything else.  Fredo's owner, who--if this were called America's Next Top Dog Owner--would clearly win, says Fredo gets Innova.  Sarah is confused.  Diane tells her that while they don't sell it at Petsmart, it's a premium brand.   Cookie gets some sort of higher-end wet food b/c she "won't eat dry."  Fredo's owner totally sweeps this part of the contest.  Zoe's owner gets a lecture about why, in the end, better foods can actually be cheaper.  Cookie's owner gets a lecture about getting that little princess to eat dry food so that her teeth don't fall out of her pretty little head.  Fredo's owner does an admirable job of not looking smug.

Now, it's time to start learning cool tricks.  Sarah shows them how to teach "roll over" by getting the dog into a settle and then--basically--rolling them over by pulling the treat (which is practically in the mouth) from one side to the other.  Fredo and Zoe, predictably, are doing pretty well.  Zoe is better b/c Fredo's pretty happy to just lie there.  They work on "shake" next, confusing the dogs utterly.  "I sat, now give me the damn treat.  Hey, what're you doing with my paw?  Huh?  okay, thanks for the treat."   Diane goes to help Zoe's mom with "shake" and Sarah comes over to show how easy it will be to teach Fredo "beg."  He goes up on his haunches like a circus poodle.  In the background, while the big dogs are learning their tricks, Cookie's dad is saying, "Set.  Set. Set.  Cookie, set.  Set."  It's almost hypnotic.  And useless. But Cookie weighs like 5 ounces and is so damned cute that it won't matter.

Class dismisses.  Next week: again with the tricks.  Or, did you do your homework?