Watched the 128th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on television the other night with a couple of in-house Experts.

Big mistake.

Huge.

The Experts may never be the same. One of them, the Big Dog, is lying at my feet still. The other one, the Little Dog, is somewhere deep in the basement plotting the overthrow of Newfoundland, I believe. Talk about scarred for years, and each one of ours is roughly equal to seven of theirs, remember.

Four-point-six million Americans tuned in to this televised competition last year, or the combined audience of three entire episodes of "Playmakers," in keeping with the dog theme here. USA Network's 3.7 average TV rating for most of the past five show years is considered an astounding success on cable, even though the number slipped a bit from the 4.0s of the late 1990s, the dog days of the Clinton administration. So there must be something to this Westminster contest -- the second-oldest continuous sporting event in America after the 20-month-older Kentucky Derby -- that it attracts cable-TV numbers behind only regular-season football and card games.

Tuesday night, the resident Human with the Remote figured the resident Big Dog and Little Dog could enlighten him. You know, all this rot about a Dog's Life. And how must a poodle feel when some hairdresser turned Jack the Ripper inflicts one of those embarrassing doggie 'dos upon them?

So the pooches and I gathered around the TV in time for the Sporting, Hound and -- our Experts' category -- the Herding breeds. The flaw in the logic was soon apparent. Those dogs are raised differently from the start, especially given atrocious names such as Hewly Hippolitus and Grinchy Glee and Wyatt Regency and Ty Won On and Hostile Takeover and Playmate of the Year (but you can call her Bunny). Those dogs are bred and trained to gambol and pose and strike an attitude in front of both touchy-feely judges and cheering throngs in Madison Square Garden. My dogs are bred and trained to do something completely different in my garden.

Minutes into the program, and eyebrows and fur were already raised in the living room. The announcer was talking about how a judge puts his or her hands on a competitor "to see what's in there." In this show business, that's part of the territory. Where we come from, that's a felony. The Big Dog and Little Dog luckily failed to notice it.

Suddenly they both started barking over the Sussex spaniel in the Sporting competition. Did they smell a fix? Was Timmy stuck in the well? What gave? The Big Dog really seemed PO'd, even to the point of putting his front paws on my shoulders.

Oops, consider that a misread signal.

They needed to go out.

Back from our walk, one of the announcers -- more likely analyst David Frei than former CBS morning weatherman Mark McEwen -- proclaimed: "These dogs do shed." I could just hear the Big Dog thinking: Like, duh, and a bear eliminates in the big, leafy gardens.

Frei also called someone involved with the show "one of my favorite people in dogs." You don't get this kind of pithy analysis from John Madden anymore.

At long last, the Herding group trotted onto the screen. One of them even had a story of adversity to rival any Human athlete: At 16 months old, he got into a box of poison and nearly died. Now, there's your Comeback Canine of the Year, folks. No way could a cat conjure such a harrowing, made-for-TV-sports tale, at least not until late into its ninth life.

The Big Dog, an Australian shepherd, immediately appeared mortified to see his breed on TV. The reason: His brethren had no tail. Someone somewhere along the genetic, breeding or veterinary trail had whacked it. He promptly -- and I'm not making this up -- left the room and curled up in a corner. Imagine how you'd feel seeing a similar body part absent on competitors at a Mr. or Miss America pageant. If dogs ever rule the world (though my money's on cats and cockroaches), may they seek revenge on their barbaric owners. That day, I'll be laughing my ample assets off.

What waddled next across the screen but a Welsh corgi, a far more purebred one than our Little Dog from the Fayette County shelter. Still, there was more horror: It likewise had no tail. The Little Dog whined and -- I'm not making this up, either -- ran behind the couch, out of view.

Wouldn't you know, the Welsh corgi won. High paws all round? No, the Little Dog just couldn't watch. Not even in the Best in Show event to end the telecast and the competition. Not even when her breed made it the final, poised to become possibly the first corgi such champion in 97 years and do her breed proud, only to lose to ... a Newfoundland. I'm guessing dogs -- like Canadians about denizens of that province -- love nothing more than to make Newfie jokes.

Anyway, the Little Dog still hadn't recovered as of yesterday, the day after. All day, she was a royal b ... well, you know.

From now on, it's nothing but poker on TV for them. Late Night Poker. World Series of Poker. Hmmm, maybe there's a way for USA and Westminster to get into the latest craze that has the Travel Channel, ESPN, Fox Sports Net and NBC pushing their chips across the table. Just picture the newest series: Dogs Playing Poker.