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While watching "Greatest American Dog" last night, I came to the conclusion that reality television should not go the dogs.

The toll of competing in silly challenges is too much for many good dogs. It strains the relationship between pooches and their humans.

And in the cut-throat, win-at-all-costs realm of reality television, good people are usually at a disadvantage. And even the most annoying dog people are usually pretty good people. Dogs bring out the humanity in humans.

Before the Dog Bone Challenge, we saw Bill talking about how much he missed his family. The challenge was for each of the humans to coax their dogs into crossing a skinny balance beam across a shallow mud pit. The human whose dog who crossed the beam, without taking a dip into the mud, in the fastest time won the Dog Bone Suite, including a letter from home and family pictures.

Bill and his Brittany, Star, completed the task in 16 seconds. The typically high-strung Teresa managed to get her border collie, Leroy, over in five seconds. All the other dogs decided it was more fun to play in the mud. Dogs are usually right about this sort of thing.

Teresa, who has not been my favorite human up to this point, gave the suite, and the competitive advantage in the next elimination challenge that came with it, to Bill so he could have his letter and pictures.

I am sure Donald Trump would have fired her for giving away a competitive edge for no other reason than to be nice. I'll bet Trump doesn't have a dog.

The elimination competition was "Dancing with the Dogs," and the humans had two days to teach their pooches to bust a move to various musical genres. Bill and Star, Laurie and Andrew, and J.D. and the ever-amazing mutt Galaxy did very nice routines (Bill's advantage was having his routine choreographed by a professional), but the rest of the pack struggled.

Brandy and her stressed-out schnauzer Beacon were tossed for their tortured ballet routine. For weeks I would have been happy to see Brandy go, but I think it was the best thing for Beacon.

The dog was shutting down from the stress of all this nonsense her whiny human was asking her to do. Had she been paying attention to Beacon's body language, Brandy would have voluntarily left. The need to take care of your dog has to override the competitive drive to win.

I hope she takes Beacon home, tells her what a good dog she is, and allows her some time to decompress. A few days of couch snuggling should do the trick.