"Great job, Günter! The ratings are wunderbar ," Pixel panted. "Netflix-Wau has already greenlit your next project. A reboot of Lassie … but with a techno soundtrack and set in a Berlin nightclub."
Later, at the after-party held in a fire hydrant-shaped VIP lounge, Günter nursed a bowl of bone broth. Pixel the Jack Russell hopped beside him.
But the real heavyweight was Wuff den Wuff (Bark the Bark), a singing competition where dogs howled covers of Rammstein. A three-legged Poodle mix named Wolfgang had won last year with a haunting rendition of "Du Hast."
Pixel nodded, already texting on a dog-bone-shaped phone. "Of course, Günter. Of course. Hundheit ." Free German Dog Porn
"And the Golden Squeaky Toy goes to… Das Müsste Man Mal Untersuchen !"
The audience gasped. A fight nearly broke out between the Leberwurst sponsors and a delegation from Feline Industries.
And so, another night in the glorious, absurd, and deeply organized world of German Dog entertainment came to a close. The last howl of the night faded into the Cologne sky—a perfect, modulated, and grammatically correct B-flat minor. "Great job, Günter
"I would like to thank my producer," Helga woofed into the mic. "And to finally reveal the answer to our investigation: yes, squeaky toys are made by cats. It's a plot to overstimulate us. We have the documents."
You see, in Germany, dog entertainment was not a frivolous affair. It was an industrie . It had ordnung . It was state-subsidized and taken as seriously as car engineering or bread baking.
Günter, a venerable Dachshund with eyebrows like tufts of wiry snow, adjusted his bow tie and glared at the teleprompter. "More pathos, Günter," his agent, a frantic Jack Russell named Pixel, had squeaked. "The nation is counting on you." A reboot of Lassie … but with a
The nation, in this case, was the entire canine population of the Federal Republic of Germany. And the event was the 47th annual Telepaws Awards, the Oscars of Hundefunkschau —German Dog entertainment.
The Malamute documentary team—a fluffy conspiracy theorist named Helga and her long-suffering cat-sidekick (they were trying something new)—trotted to the stage. Helga accepted the award, which was a solid-gold replica of a flattened, drool-soaked rubber duck.