So last night the family sat down for another episode of Greatest American Dog. It produced a few cringe worthy moments, almost making me turn the channel. What can I say, I don’t deal with conflict very well. We’ll get to that shortly.

The dog bone challenge this week was an intelligence test; put some people food behind a wall and see how long it takes the contestants to figure out how to get at it.

It looked like Teresa and Leroy or JD and Galaxy were going to win with times of 15 seconds. Then whaddya know, Bill and Star came on the scene and totally destroyed that number, getting to the food in 8 seconds. Star knows what she likes, and she likes her people food!

Bill, reciprocating Teresa’s kind act of last week, gave her the dog bone suit and the leg up on this week’s Best in Show competition. People being nice to each other, we love to see that. Unfortunately, we weren’t going to see much more of it on this week’s show.

The Best in Show competition was focused on dog painting. Basically the contestants were given a blank canvas and they were tasked with creating a work of art that spoke to the relationship between the owner and their pup. The difficulty? Only the dog could paint the canvas.

All types of methods were crafted to let the inner Pawcaso’s (thanks Beth Joy) out. It ranged from stencils to sponges on feet and backs to peanut butter powered paint rollers. In the end some of the paintings were pretty good, albeit only if viewed through the prism of a six year old’s eyes. But hey, it’s canine’s painting!

So let’s talk about the controversy from last night. When Beth Joy was creating her masterpiece, she put Bella Starlet‘s paws into a paint pan. Don’t worry, all paint was canine friendly. It was made apparent that Bella Starlet has issues with anyone touching her front paws and she made a yelping sound. This happened several times, prompting others to look over to see what was going on. From a distance it appeared the dog was being forced to do something it didn’t want to, but I leave that judgement up to Beth Joy who would know better than anyone if this was the case. There’s no doubt she loves Bella Starlet more than anything in the world.

Enter Laura and Preston. I don’t know why they were up against the clock when everyone else seemed to have been done, but their painting wasn’t very good. I forget what it was supposed to represent but it just looked like a few paint cans had been tipped over. Yup, Bo could have done that.

When Laura was pressed on why it was so bad by the judges, she indicated she only worked Preston up to his limit and wasn’t willing to push him past it…unlike others in the competition. Yikes! The judges asked who, and Laura backed the bus over Beth Joy.

Next thing you know, Travis pipes up and supports Beth Joy. Not the greatest move if you’re looking to have a relationship with the accuser. Then, while the judges were making their decision, a confrontation occurred between Beth Joy and Laura. This is the point I wanted to change the channel. This is not why I’m watch the show.

So in the end we had the bottom three…JD and Galaxy, Laurie and Andrew and Laura and Preston. Based on the paintings it wasn’t hard to see who to expel. Bye, bye Laura and Preston.

A couple of highlights from last night, at least for me:

– Star holding a pretzel in her mouth until Bill finished reading the ingredients on the package to make sure it was OK for her to eat it.

– There was a quick shot of Leroy on the bed sleeping with his tongue out. Gets me every time.

– Galaxy showing how good he is at catching frisbees and Presley showing how good he is at attacking doggie beds.

– The dogs with paint on their faces.

– Travis admitting he has commitment issues to the judges and then pushing his budding romance with Laura away by siding with Beth Joy.

It was nice to see a bit more dog action than what we’ve seen in the past. Hopefully they’ll concentrate on that more than the human issues going forward.

Hey, next week we get to see puppies in action!! Puppies on camera!!! Yeah, can’t wait.

I know you have opinions…let us hear ’em.