Who Is the Best Dog: Buster the Boxer, Snoop Dogg or Dog the Bounty Hunter?

Today, in the smoking aftermath of it all, there are many questions to answer: how did Trump win? Who voted for Trump? How did one of the most clumsy, calamitous campaigns in history result in a win? What next for America? What next for the world? Will we look back upon this moment as the worst decision in history, or will he sort of bundle through? Does Trump even want to be President? All big, important questions. Worthy questions. Vital questions. Not going to answer any of them.

Question: who is the best dog? Buster the dog, Snoop Dogg or Dog the Bounty Hunter?

I am glad you asked me that.

BUSTER THE DOG

Buster the dog is the star of the new John Lewis advert. You know how this goes by now: John Lewis make an advert and, every year, we go out of our way to look at it. They have transcended advertising: they are creating advertising so iconic, so nuanced, that it flips the normal advertising paradigm – content pushed relentlessly into our eyes and head, exposed to us against our will, like a flasher in a dreary park – entirely on its head. We come to the advert, the advert doesn't come to us. Also, it makes about 30 percent of people cry. Anyway, this one is about a dog.

TRAITS: Enjoys jumping; is jealous of squirrels.
POSSIBLE WEAKNESSES: Isn't real.

SNOOP DOGG

Snoop Dogg is a slender rapper who once appeared in Katy Perry video looking really, really confused. I am serious about this. I don't think people care enough about it: imagine being Snoop Dogg, right. Imagine being really, really stoned. And Katy Perry makes you dress in a cupcake-print suit and behold a castle made of ice cream cones. Can you imagine the psychological impact that's going to have on you? Mentally, you're never getting up from that. "California Gurls" was six years ago and my theory is Snoop Dogg is still confused about what happened. Katy Perry should be in jail for what she did to Snoop Dogg. For what she did to his mind.

TRAITS: Snoop Dogg is known primarily for wearing very large clothes and smoking marijuana about it.
POSSIBLE WEAKNESSES: Snoop Dogg, mentally, does not even occupy this planet. He is 100,000 miles away, having a very sedate time in another world, a more blissful one, one where people say "legit" a lot.

DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER

Dog the Bounty Hunter is a very red-faced man who spent the years 2004 to 2012 wearing black tactical gear and putting Hawaiian drug addicts in headlocks while shouting "QUIT THAT ICE" at them. He has the hair and general demeanour of a really physically strong Midwest-dwelling housewife in the year 1985.

TRAITS: Tactically astute, good at headlocks, exceptionally fertile.
POSSIBLE WEAKNESSES: Due to a murder conviction Dog cannot legally own a firearm, so has to use a weird sort of foam/pepper spray hybrid instead. That is his only weakness. He is otherwise the toughest man on the planet.

And so to the contest. Dog, Dogg and a dog will be judged based on a number of categories, with numbers assigned almost arbitrarily for each. A lot of people say this isn't a fair contest, that the judging is done solely by me, and that I am biased; they say these rundowns necessarily cannot be fair, and that my persistence with them is bringing the concept of fair competition into disrepute. I would like to extend a healthy "fuck off" to those people. On to the competition, which Dog the Bounty Hunter will definitely win:

Buster the Boxer: A lot of people are saying the heartwarming story of Buster the Boxer, the dog who loves to bounce, made them cry, but they are wrong, they are wrong to do that. Watch it again: Buster the Boxer is fuelled only by dark emotions – jealousy, greed. He watches a badger bounce on a trampoline and, deep within his dog soul, thinks: 'I want what that badger has. I will snatch it from him and tear his throat with my teeth to have it, if only the devil gave me a chance.' Watch at the end: the trampoline, which is ostensibly for the excited Christmas girl, is snatched greedily away from her by the bouncing dog. Does Buster do anything to consider the girl's gleeful Christmas emotions? He does not. It is always take, take, take with that guy. I hate to have to say this, but fuck that dog. Fuck that Christmas dog. Three out of ten.

Snoop Dogg: Snoop Dogg released a song in 1993 and has been high ever since. There is not much of a narrative arc to look at. One in ten.

Dog the Bounty Hunter: You would think that a show about a man driving a 4X4 around and occasionally handcuffing someone really, really high wouldn't have a narrative arc, but you'd be wrong, because Dog the Bounty Hunter's secret gift is to spot the good in someone, especially when they have lost all their teeth to meth. And so he gets in the backseat with them and really quietly says, "You know what? You're a good person," and, "You remind me of me," and, "You won't do drugs again, will you? Pray it! Pray it on the lord!" And then, still, takes them to the police for bounty. But at least he tries, is the point. Six out of ten.

Buster the Boxer: It is not known whether Buster the Boxer takes drugs or not: we don't learn enough about him in the two-minute advert. I'm going to veer towards "he dabbled with it once in college, wasn't really for him". I'm reading this thing about dogs taking drugs (the internet is a wonder!) and it says you shouldn't really give coke to dogs, but they'll be more or less alright if they have a cannabis edible. At the very worst, Buster the Boxer is a weedhead. But I don't know how a dog would roll a joint because they don't have thumbs. Overall: the idea of Buster the Boxer getting high throws up more questions than it answers, so I'm only going to give him a three for this round.

Snoop Dogg: Snoop Dogg's best friend is weed, a pale green drug you smoke in a tube like a cigarette and inhale until you think Family Guy is good and that conspiracy theories are important. He scores ten for this round.

Dog the Bounty Hunter: Dog the Bounty Hunter hates drugs. His entire show is just him arresting confused drug users after jumping through the really weak fences they always seem to have up around their property. He also always does this thing when he arrests meth addicts where he makes them ceremonially step on their meth apparatus while he says something cool like "kick that ice pipe", and for that reason he also scores a ten for this round.

Buster the Boxer: Animals cannot love god. Look at the way he snatches his chance to bounce on a trampoline ahead of a thrilled girl. That's not the action of a religious dog. That motherfucker is godless. The dog doth sin. Zero out of ten.

Snoop Dogg: Hard to know exactly which way Snoop Dogg leans on the whole "loving God" thing, because in 2009 he appeared at a Nation of Islam event and made a $1,000 donation to the organisation, but also in 2012 – after he went to Jamaica and got life-changingly high on its native weed – he converted to Rastafarianism. And then in 2013 he was criticised by members of the movement for not being Rasta enough. So he definitely at least respects some gods. More than most people, actually. He's a double-god kind of guy. I like that. Eight out of ten.

Dog the Bounty Hunter: There are only three things Dog the Bounty Hunter loves in this world: his buxom and aggressive wife, Beth, and the rest of his family; punching meth users really cleanly in the face; and praying to God to give him the strength to love his family and punch meth users really cleanly in the face. Solid nine on ten.

Buster the Boxer: Buster the Boxer has pretty good commitment to being a dog! He is a dog. He is never not a dog. He has a 100 percent record of being a dog. He scores ten points for this round, the maximum allowed.

Snoop Dogg: Ah, poor showing for Snoop Dogg. Snoop Dogg – though irrefutably a dogg – flirted with the idea of being a lion in 2012 after a life-affirming trip to Jamaica and an ensuing reggae album and a "Snoop Lion" name change, so that year spent as a lion does, sadly, count against him for the dog commitment round. He scores a lowly seven.

Dog the Bounty Hunter: Dog the Bounty Hunter is not only a dog, but he is more of a dog than Buster the Boxer, an actual dog. Let me explain: a boxer's lifespan is 10 to 12 years, possibly 14 maximum. Buster the Boxer, no matter how committed he is to being a dog, can only be a dog for that amount of time. Dog the Bounty Hunter is already 63. He has been a dog for four times longer than an actual dog can be a dog. So, for that reason, he scores 11 points for this round, one more than the maximum.

Buster the Boxer: Buster the Boxer has never said the N-word in public. A low-scoring round.

Snoop Dogg: Snoop Dogg has repeatedly used the N-word both in public and in his music. Statistically, there are probably very few people on Earth who have ever said the N-word more than Snoop Dogg has. A strong ten from Snoop.

Dog the Bounty Hunter: Wow! Well, we thought Snoop Dogg would have this round tied up. But then it turns out Dog the Bounty Hunter caused controversy in 2007 where audio leaked of a phone call he made to his son in which he drops the N-word, like, 100,000 times, and in a really uncool way. But then after the tape came to light Dog the Bounty Hunter went on a journey of self-discovery, meeting with anti-racism campaigners and writing a whole book about how he wasn't going to call his son and yell the N-word at him any more, so… Really hard to know how to score him on this round. I'm going to drop him a five, because he did technically say the N-word in public, and that's what we're scoring this on. Points deducted for doing it in a really hateful way.

Buster the Boxer: A strong ten for Buster the Boxer, who not only can run on four legs, but almost exclusively runs on four legs. He's so committed to running on four legs he doesn't even ever run on two legs. A ten for Buster. Wow! He's actually doing quite well! Could he win this?

Snoop Dogg: Snoop Dogg has never been recorded running on four legs (or, as in the case of humans, running on two legs and two arms), but I am just trying to imagine him doing so while really, really stoned, and for some reason all I can think of is Snoop Dogg, so high his eyes can barely open, crashing four-leggedly down a really long set of stairs. At the bottom he would say a really slow "wow". A low-scoring round for Snoop Dogg.

Dog the Bounty Hunter: Dog the Bounty Hunter is, technically, a biped, but if you see him during a take down it almost always ends with Dog – a torch mounted on his shoulder, the orange-blue dark of the night just settling around him, vest, always a vest – really clumsily flumping onto a panicked meth addict and sort of scurrying around after them until he has them in a satisfactory headlock. So while he might not be a natural at running on four legs, I do think he could compete with an actual dog in a land race. Six points.

Buster the Boxer: Ouch! A weak zero for Buster the Boxer in this round.

Snoop Dogg: Oh no! Snoop with the swing and the miss. He does not look like a wrestler someone killed and a warlock reincarnated even at all. Another zero.

Dog the Bounty Hunter: Woah! Dog the Bounty Hunter scores a thousand points on this round!

Buster the Dog: 28 points. A strong showing for a good boy. Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? Buster, it seems, is a middling-to-good boy.

Snoop Dogg: 38 points. Snoop Dogg won points for being cool and liking drugs; he lost them for briefly being a lion and not looking like Hulk Hogan's ghost. Close, but, ultimately, no cigar.

Dog the Bounty Hunter: 1,047 points, and our victor today. I guess if this week has proved anything it's that people can be racist on record and still win whatever race they are competing in. Well done, Dog the Bounty Hunter. You are officially better than the John Lewis Christmas dog.

@joelgolby

More stuff about dogs, Christmas adverts:

Actually, the John Lewis Advert Is Just Illuminati Propaganda, Isn't It?

Dogs Go To the Cinema

The Last Days of London's Dog-Racing Scene