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It’s not quite as funny as the reason the depute fiscal (the equivalent of a prosecutor), Sheriff Derek O’Carroll and a witness, Ephraim Borowski, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, all seem to have accepted hook, line and sinker – that Meechan must have spent effort hours training the pug to do his evil Nazi bidding.

Ergo, he was obviously serious about his Jew-hating and, as prosecutors said, the video was but “an odious criminal act that was dressed up to look like a joke.”

Clearly, none of them knows a damn thing about dogs, or ever seen one.

With the right high-pitched tone and the same cadence, a dog responds exactly the same way to “Do you wanna go for a walk?” as to “Do you wanna gas the Jews?”, which is what, in fact, Meechan said in the appropriate voice to Buddha the pug.

And every time, Buddha immediately raised his head, or at least turned it (he’s a roly-poly fellow and doesn’t seem, shall we say, driven) whenever Meechan posed the question, which some people would find offensive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYslEzHbpus&bpctr=1521591264

Ditto the “Sieg Heil”: Meechan would ask for the Nazi salute in the same way he might have asked the pug for a paw, so the pug obliged and, like many dogs, when he shakes a paw, he straight-arms the shake.

(I tested out both requests with my own lazy bull terrier. He responded with identical enthusiasm when I asked, “Do you wanna cookie?” and, “Gimme a paw” as he did to “Do you wanna gas the Jews?” and “Sieg Heil.” These lovely creatures are not brain surgeons; most of them have no freaking idea what the human is actually asking them to do, only that if the voice and other cues are right and they do what they’ve always done, they are rewarded.)