I have often wondered about the world’s complainers. How do they have the time to write, call, email their dissatisfaction with things?

Now I know. When something really pisses you off, you make the time.

Tonight, I am the complainer. And I am fired up.

For much of the summer I have been watching the CBS program “Greatest American Dog.” It’s your basic reality program, but each contestant is there with a dog. As a dog lover, I had found it adorable. The bond between dog and owner was wonderful to watch.

Each week the contestants run through two challenges, and at the end they are judged by three dog experts. At the end of each episode, a person and their dog gets sent home.

After this week I question whether Victoria Stilwell, Allan Reznik and Wendy Diamond really are experts and whether they actually care about the dogs or animals in general. As far as the program’s producers, well, there is no question about their love and caring for animals. They have none.

In the first contest this week, each dog had to sit down in a marked area, and stay still while… ok, I’m not kidding here… an ELEPHANT walked towards it in a menacing way. The dog that let the elephant get the closest was the winner.

You could see the terror on the faces of several of the dogs. All they wanted to do was run, but their owners, to win the challenge, had to yell “Stay, Stay” the entire time. The dogs were faced with the horrible choice of watching an ELEPHANT stomp towards them or disappointing their beloved owners.

And then there’s the issue of how you control an elephant to keep it from charging or stomping or doing any of the other things an elephant can do. There was an elephant trainer who had a big rod, that looked like it was made for poking or whacking.

That was the night’s first challenge.

Challenge number two was a giant jungle gym/obstacle course thing. The dogs had to run up a steep ramp, traverse a balance beam and then, using a body harness and at the urging of their owners, jump from a 10 foot ledge and slide down a zip line.

Again, you could see the terror in each dog’s eyes.

Question: How do you tell a dog it’s ok to jump off of a wall because the harness around its body will let it glide to safety.

Answer: YOU CAN’T!

And tonight, the owner who throughout the season has shown the greatest bond with his dog was sent home. Because his sweet dog was too scared to jump off of the wall.

His dog couldn’t be convinced to do something that a dog should never be trained to do.

The judges said he failed at the task. It is worth noting that these are the same judges who, just the week before, chastised him for pushing his dog too hard while trying to win a race through a maze.

This week he failed because he didn’t push his dog enough to get it to jump off a wall.

Shame on the judges and shame on CBS.