Katinger.com

I don't consider myself an overly sensitive or mushy guy. However, lots of guys have a certain something that brings out the inner wuss. I work with a guy who is about 6' 5" and his nick name is ELHB (extremely large human being), yet he has a kitten calendar on his office wall. For me...it's puppies. Any dogs really. I like dogs much better than people...for the most part. That's why this show on Animal Planet called Cell Dogs is really messing with my head.

Cell Dogs chronicles the progress of various prison inmate programs whose mission it is to have inmates train stray dogs to be highly adoptable house pets, or pure bred dogs to be one-in-a-million Seeing Eye dogs. Not only do I want every single damn one of those dogs to come live with me, but I find myself actually feeling for the prisoners who train them and then have to let them go to adoptive households. These hardened criminals sometimes come to tears when they have to separate. I find my death-row-advocating inner Republican and my mushy-puppy-loving inner wuss at odds. And of course my girlfriend would not be opposed to living with 450 puppies either. Who needs kids!? We just have to figure out how to get out of this awful apartment of ours as it is not conducive to doggies.

The other thing that gets me about this show and the one that comes on right after it is the unspeakable cruelty that many of the adopted dogs have dealt with in their lives. These dogs were brought to the brink of death by negligent or incredibly cruel humans. Most of them take a long while to get rehabilitated, but they still somehow trust people again. Dogs are amazing. Can I have one? Puh-leeeezze?????