"A BEAR?"

“No Olive, it’s not a polar bear,” I inform my TV-loving pooch. But look at it. Can you blame her? I saw this thing and it made me crave both a Coca-Cola and a York Peppermint Pattie. Olive finds the television exceptionally engaging. Some dogs don’t. Like the dog a friend of mine had for many years. A fawn-colored Labrador who I’m sure was put on this earth to make us realize that yes, like people, dogs can be intellectually challenged as well. Steve (yes, that was his name) never, as in ever, glanced at the TV screen in his 15 years on this planet. Not a hint of awareness in the flickering images. Zero interest in the cacophony of sounds spilling out of the “idiot box.” He would walk by it a thousand times a day as if it were an inanimate object. Just another piece of furniture. Steve was a good dog, just not one of the brighter ones. In fact, my last and most enduring memory of Steve is when he returned home after running off (probably chasing a cloud or a shadow). Gone for hours, he shows up at my friend’s front door, all tuckered out and drooling. Smiling, with a peanut-butter coated English muffin stuck to the roof of his mouth. Stuck. To this day, I can’t figure out why he didn’t or couldn’t eat it. While he may have had no thumbs, he did have paws. As a counterpoint to Steve, I have a dog that is an avid TV watcher. Last night, Olive actually barked at the pheasants she heard on Downton Abbey. She chases the Golden Retriever chasing the VW Beetle in a commercial. She barks at doorbells ringing on pizza commercials, figure skaters gliding across the ice, cartoon dogs and cats acting silly, and dogs engaged in canine combat on “Dog Whisperer.” I have even watched her chase a marathon runner on TV. I guess the 51-inch screen makes it all seem incredibly real to Olive, but something tells me that even if the screen were much smaller, she wouldn’t notice it any less.