Critter tv

So Buddy is finally noticing the television, which is great, because I always planned to use the mesmerising effect of the tube as a key part of my parenting strategy. He's not so hot keen on the cartoons just yet, he likes to watch mammals and occasionally fish.

In my search for some critter tv, I was hunting through the documentary area of the satellite menu. Insects? No. Bears, yes. Animals cops in Detroit? Sometimes. He likes it so long as there's an underfed Rottweiler or a mangy pit bull or some scraggly kittens, but his attention wanes as soon as a Michigan animal welfare officer comes on the screen. And when his attention wanes, he starts banging the brass curtain pull against the window or shoving the remote down the radiator or pulling books off the bookshelf.

Crocodiles. No, apparently reptiles aren't that interesting either. But I had to stop and watch the Crocodile Hunter guy for a moment. Steve Irwin and his chirpy Australianness and his love of animals that I wouldn't touch with a stick. He was picking up snakey looking lizard things in a burnt out landscape, it must have been filmed during Australia's long drought and bush fires and he was trying to rescue the things. He was a clearly distressed by their plight.

"And you know what really tears my heart out?" he said to the camera.
"A sting ray?" I replied to the tv.