The rules on capital punishment

At last, I've managed to get my paws on the computer to write my next blog. I'd first like to thank all my human bean friends for your kind comments on my last piece. Your words of wisdom are so helpful to a little toutou trying to understand the ways of humans.

One thing occurred to me from your comments, not only here on my blog but in places like Twitter, too. I've been told that the dog in that Cesar Millan video who appeared to be learning not to attack cats by wearing a shock collar and getting zapped every time it went near the cat would otherwise be put to sleep as a cat killer and my question is simply - why?

Why do human beans have the death penalty for dogs who follow what is after all a pretty basic instinct to chase and eat cats?

Ma maitresse has a cat, a very precious Siamesey type thing that thinks it's royalty and well above mere dogs like me. I don't understand about cats. I'd love to eat it. But ma maitresse says, until we get used to one another, we'll just have to live in different parts of the house. Now perhaps the dog owner in the video didn't have enough room to keep her cat and dog separate. In which case I wonder why she was trying to keep such a big and lively dog at all?

It can't be said that she was afraid her dog would kill other people's cats. She obviously doesn't have the dog under control, if she can't stop it attacking her own cat, so she shouldn't be letting the dog off the lead anywhere it could get at other people's cats - should she? That seems to be the law in most countries I've heard of.

I know I'm lucky because there's plenty of room here for both me and the cat. But if there wasn't and we really couldn't get along, I'd like to think ma maitresse would find a new home for one or other of us (and I hope it would be the cat!) rather than having me killed.

Ma maitresse certainly doesn't give me electric shocks or try to strangle me with a choke chain for going for the cat. She understands it's just that I don't know any better - yet. But I am getting better. I can look at the cat through the glass door and sometimes I can even do it without barking at her now.

Ma maitresse once went to see a man called Roger Mugford, about another dog, not me, and one of his people showed her a clever trick. In fact, it's so clever I didn't realise it was her doing a trick until she explained it to me, for this blog. I'd discovered that if I lunged at the door to try and get the cat, a nasty noise happened which I didn't like so I'd jump back nearer to ma maitresse who then made a big fuss of me and gave me a treat. So I learned the polite way to greet the cat was to go quietly up to the door and wag my tail. I thought the scary noise was coming from the cat if I wasn't polite enough - respect! Turns out all along that ma maitresse has an old Cola can full of pebbles and she shakes it to make the noise. And I never even realised. It's much less harmful to me than the shock collar would be, but it has made me understand the polite way to approach a cat.

Other people have also said that two trainers had tried and failed with that cat-killing dog before Mr Millan came along, so he was its last chance. I'd like to know who those trainers were and what their methods were that weren't successful. Because, as you human beans like to say, there's more than one way to skin a cat. And more than one way to train a dog not to.

The way ma maitresse is using is succeeding with me, but slowly, and it takes a lot of time and patience. So perhaps it wouldn't make very good television.