Puppies in Prison

Having only ever watched part of another episode of Oprah, I marveled at the consistency I've seen this far. Both times, Oprah spent most of the episode crying. She talked about her dog. (I shouldn't know that her dog's name is Sadie, but she said it enough times that it would be hard to forget). She talked about herself. In fact, she managed to take a fascinating topic and make it mostly about herself. Glenn Close didn't help.

All the fanfare aside, I was blown away by Glenn Close's reason for being on the show. Specifically, she has helped make a documentary about Puppies Behind Bars, a program that uses prison inmates to train puppies to become service dogs. Not only is this a big contribution to the tricky subject of prison system issues and reform, it marks a nice turnaround from the days when Glenn used to use puppies to make coats.

Of course, Glenn Close managed to get all political by hawking an odd dog chew toy (the footprint of a soldier's boot colored like the American flag). And Oprah managed to bring it full circle back to herself by joshing about how she certainly needed one, since Sadie was chewing on her Prada shoes earlier. Oh, can't we all relate to that wacky, everyday scenario! At least between the moments of self-absorption and over-emotion, there was a story and a program worth learning about.