can't say I'm much of an animal lover and much prefer human beings despite the inherent flaws of the human race . I've been somewhat suspicious of animal lovers , in that their love of animals is matched by their hatred of humans . The bigger the animal lover the bigger their misanthropic towards their fellow humans . If I'm asked what's my favourite animal is I have no hesitation in saying cats . Apparently all the world's most infamous dictators hated cats . Mussolini hated cats , as did Stalin as did Hitler who was a great lover of dogs . The thinking behind this is that you can't train a cat where as you can train a dog . That tells you something about both dog lovers and dictators
Knowing this I was intrigued about Vance Malone's short documentary on Irina Markova a woman who trains poodles in one of Russia's circus . She can make them do anything such as dancing a conga and we see the dogs doing their thing . Being only seven minutes long it's a documentary far too short for its own good . I wanted to know a lot more about Irina . What's her motives ? Was it because she spent her formative years living under a Marxist regime she felt great empathy with a species that can be easily conditioned ? She mentions unhappiness in her life but with the exception of loosing a dog in her youth much of her life remains unexplained and she remains an enigmatic unexplored figure . Some people might smile as the poodles are put through their show but I can imagine hard core dog lovers jumping on the outrage bus screaming that this show is cruel and is of the same moral equivalent as the gas chambers of Hitler's Nazi regime . The more people love dogs the more they hate humans
