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Nunu is not happy.

Well, I finally came across an episode that I just plain don’t like.

One of the “rules” I established for these commentaries is that I would accept what is shown on the show at face value. One of my frequent problems with what I see is not just what is happening, but why the producers (and at least implicitly Cesar Millan) decided to show it to us. I understand that drama sells and this drives at lot of the content, but after 5 1/2 years they must be aware that many people take the show very seriously and literally hang on Cesar’s every word and action.

This issue hit me full in the face when I saw “Chihuahuas from Hell.” But instead of wondering why a specific scene escaped the “cutting room floor,” I found myself wondering what the point of the much of the episode was. Other than a celebration of Millan’s macho posturing, I really couldn’t figure it out.

“Chihuahuas from Hell” starts with a retrospective of earlier chihuahua “cases” that Cesar has handled before introducing us to “El Diablo,” the most aggressive chihuahua yet! (Said with much gravitas and that scary electronic bass line that NGC loves so much.) I found the epiosde puzzling on a few levels. One of them is that a frequent defense of Cesar is that he has changed and become “more positive” over the years. If that’s the case, why are we seeing, in December of 2009 (that’s when I TIVOd it), a show with clips that date back to his first episode?

In addition to being puzzled by much of this episode, I have to confess I found it more than a little annoying — both the producer and Cesar Millan(as evidenced by his initial reaction to “El Diablo”) seem to think that aggressive chihuahuas are entertaining, even worthy of a bluesy “bad to the bone” montage. As a matter of fact,recent research indicates that chihuahuas is one of the more common breeds to bite, and the researchers theorized that the fact that people tend to take it less seriously may be one of the reasons why. (The show even mentions this at the beginning, but Cesar still finds the description of Diablo’s behavior amusing, and isn’t that montage kinda funny?)

Rather than tackle the entire episode at once, I’m going to break it down over a couple of posts. For one thing, there’s about two minutes of film toward the beginning that I could spend pages ranting about.

Nunu is a chihuahu that was rescued by Tina at the vet’s office where she worked. From her description, Nunu was always aggressive and bit people from the very beginning. We see Nunu’s case for a grand total of 1 minute, 25 seconds.

The first question that came to mind when it was over (well…after “That’s it?”) was what exactly was the point of that?

First, take a look at the photo above. Would you grab that chihuahu? Look at his eyes. Look at how stiff he seems. Let’s see what happened. (Note that the even the guy who does the warning graphics knew that this was dangerous.)

Honestly, where do I start? Why did Cesar Millan need to handle the dog? Here’s a hint about how I feel about that question: if your method of dealing with aggression involves getting bit, or even a moderately low chance of getting bit, there’s something wrong.

The original episode is not available on Hulu or National Geographic’s site, so I don’t know how long Millan held Nunu there. I guess, based on Cesar’s comment about “winning” (sigh), that we are supposed to think that it was until Nunu gave in. Let’s see what happened afterwards.

How does Nunu look to you? What do you think of Cesar’s explanation? “He is invited to live in your kingdom.” Does Nunu look like he feels like a welcome guest? Do you believe that after what sounds like years of aggressive behavior, one submission pin fixed it all? If it did, would you want that to be the basis for your relationship with your dog?

In case you missed Tina’s reaction:

“The most important thing I learned from Cesar is that I have to be more dominant with my dog rather than letting my dog dominate me in everything that I do in my life.”

It’s difficult for me to describe what I think should have been done differently. Under what circumstances (other than being forcibly pinned to someone’s leg) did Nunu growl and bite? Was it always when he was near Tina, or all the time? He may have been guarding her or the sofa, which one was it? Was there a resource guarding component and a handling issue or just one or the other? Without more information it’s hard to come up with specific recommendations. It all ties back to what was the point of that?

The answer, by the way, is the drama. That was the point. It’s a reality show.

More chihuahuas next week!