I first told you about the summers newest reality hit The Greatest American Dog several weeks ago and how the show combined elements of Survivor, Big Brother, and other Reality TV fair in an attempt to pick the best dog among twelve teams consisting of one pet and one owner. While I have developed a love for the show and haven’t missed an episode yet, I apparently did miss a potentially irresponsible act by one of the competitors several weeks ago that seems to have been ignored by CBS executives as well.

During the episode which aired during week four, the teams were given the task of taking a photograph of their dog that best matched one of several emotions. Lazy, happy, etc…the whole thing involved a professional photographer and it was the trainer’s duty to make the animal appear to be expressing the emotion randomly given to them on command. It was during this contest that Teresa took things a little too far in regards to the way she was trying to get her border collie Leroy to show anger. Instead of teaching her dog to make a certain face, Teresa decided to actually try and get Leroy mad at her.

By repeatedly spraying the dog with lemon juice, forcing a dryer hose in its mouth, and using water downed grapefruit juice, Teresa succeeded in doing just that. Leroy became so enraged at the abuse by which his owner was dishing out he bit her leading to Teresa to shout “You #$%@! You just bit me; I would think I deserve a little more from you." After the pup ran to her to receive affection, Teresa turned on the dog again saying “I'm not your mother right now.”

While there was no way for CBS to know the tactics some of Greatest American Dogs contestants would go to win, doesn’t the fact that they chose not to edit out this abuse or in the very least acknowledge it with some type of anti-abuse statement, in a sense give off the impression that what Teresa did to her idea of what America’s greatest dog should be is okay? By ignoring the entire thing isn’t the network shirking on it’s responsibility to the public? At the very least don’t you agree that CBS missed a valuable opportunity to denounce pet violence and promote proper pet training?

Do you have an opinion on this? If so drop us a line and let us hear your thoughts.