Last week, I spoke to the latest evictee from "Greatest American Dog," David, whose dog Elvis developed a reputation as the bad boy of the house through biting another contestant. Here's what David had to say on behalf of his best friend, on subjects ranging from Elvis's $10,000 "bark mitzvah" to the lessons the Jack Russell terrier taught him:

MSN: So David, it was a little bit of a tough break for you and Elvis last time. What do you think happened that you were the ones who got expelled?

David: Well, you could see it was building up I guess, with all the "Elvis turns into a Jack Russell terrorist tonight!" and "Elvis is uncontrollable!" He's just the sweetest little dog. I was almost thrilled at the way it ended. They did show you Elvis playing with Andrew. Laurie never let that dog anywhere. Andrew was on her lap the entire taping. ... Everybody was good friends with Elvis, so it was kind of strange to me to see poor Elvis become as I said "the Hannibal Lecter of the house." I think I'm going to change it to the Animal Lecter of the house. It was nice that it was resolved. Now what happened was, whether I got double-crossed or not, we talked about putting Elvis on a leash to do the teeter-totter. What you don't know is Elvis was the only one [on my team] who could do it. Laurie said, "Andrew can't do it. He's too small." Ron said, "Tillman can't do it. He's too big." Brandi didn't even know what a teeter-totter was. And the other dog was the only one who could do the frisbee. I decided he's been on it one time, the poor guy. We did it the day before we flew out. I took him to a see-saw in the park and he tried it. So I think he did a good job. He went up there, he went off the side a little bit, but he did the maze great. I was proud of him he did it, but I guess in the judges' eyes, he fell off the second level and since everyone else did adequately, I would think, I was the one to go. It was unfortunate, because I would have been great the next week, when I saw the preview of the photography. We certainly could have done a great job there.

MSN: So why did you name your dog "Elvis"?

David: He's my first dog. But I remember as a four-year-old or a five-year-old -- I don't know how much you can remember when you're that young -- I remember my parents owned a grocery store in South Jersey and there was a little mutt and his name was Elvis. Eventually, he wasn't around any more and I said to my parents, "What happened to Elvis?" and they said he was killed by the side of a highway. So this one is named in his name. In fact, when I brought Elvis to meet my mother in a nursing home, she only had another month to live, I remember asking her, "Mom, what was the name of that dog when I was younger?" And she said, "Elvis" ... Thus the name. I'm not an Elvis Presley fan, or know his movies well. It's named after him.

MSN: And did Elvis bond with Presley particularly well, given their sharing a name in a sense?

David: Just the opposite. There's something in general about boxers with dogs. A lot of dogs don't like boxers, whether it's the scent, it's the face. But Elvis didn't like Presley at all. He always growled when he saw Presley. And I asked the people on the show, my fellow housemates, and they said that's true about boxers. A lot of dogs do not like boxers. But what a coincidence. We're on the same team in the talent show and it's Elvis-Presley. I did make a comment. I said, "Elvis and Presley, I think, will not rock the house tonight." That wasn't seen.

MSN: I don't understand one thing. Fifty-ish is pretty late to be owning your first dog ever. Why didn't you have dogs before?

David: Yeah, I wish I did now that I look back at that. I was not a dog person whatsoever. We never had them in the house growing up. If a dog came near me, I'd always pick my hands up. I'd never pet a dog. I never even looked down to look at a dog. I couldn't tell you the breeds. They were not in my life whatsoever. I thought they were smelly. I'd go to someone's house and the dog would jump up on me and I was uncomfortable. But then one day at work, a guy who worked for me brought his Jack Russell to the office. He said, "David, tell the dog to roll over. " And he rolled over. "Tell him to sit." And he sat. I thought, "That's kind of neat." And then I said, "If you need me to take care of him one night, I can do it." The next thing you know, "I can take care of him for the weekend." "Oh, you're going on vacation? I can take care of him." We bonded so, I fell in love with this dog. The dog would come to me before he came to this guy who worked for me. He sent him off to Pochonos to be deprogrammed. He said, "David, you've got to get your own dog." So I began the search and found Elvis, and I have been in love with my dog ever since. I almost feel cheated out of all these years. You know, as a physician, doctors are the first one to say, "Get rid of the pet." Someone's coughing, has a little bronchitis or asthma, "Get rid of the dog." And now I've found how wonderful a pet can be, for the elderly, for my mother in a nursing home ... for children, even for stress relief for doctors. There's lots of studies about how wonderful pets are, whether it's Alzheimer's patients having fewer outbursts with the dog, or hypertension and high blood pressure or AIDS patients have less depression if they have dogs. So I think it's shame on our medical profession for not understanding well enough pet therapy, which really could be taught in med school what value they do bring to patients.

MSN: So what made you think Elvis could have been the Greatest American Dog?

David: I think the bond between Elvis and me, I don't think anybody topped [it]. Elvis and I are together. He's not on a leash all the time. He just follows me, "Dad, what's next?" Our bond is pure and it's based on true love and enjoyment. So that we had covered, I thought, for sure. And I thought, had I been on a few more episodes, a few more weeks, he was improving. Sure he had a spat with Tillman and they were afraid, but he was a trooper. He did well on the teeter-totter. He did better than Star on the maze. It would have been nice to see, if he had the opportunity, and that's why it's called Canine Academy, they're improving. So if it's about the bond between Elvis and me, and he's improving and learning, given a couple more weeks, we could have gone all the way. I did learn one thing from my dog: to be enthusiastic. I did say at the end that the judges taught me a lot and my housemates, but I learned more from my dog than anybody. When I was thrown into the Doghouse that first episode and it was night and it was cold, and I hadn't been in the house ever, and I was in my suit... I just said to Elvis like I say every night, "OK, let's go to bed." He just barreled in there, his tail was wagging, and he jumped on the covers. I said to myself, "Under any condition, look how he's enthusiastic. ... If he can be enthusiastic, it's not so miserable to be in the Doghouse, I can be that way too. I think that's one of the great lessons I learned from the show, that your dog or pet can teach you to be enthusiastic.

MSN: I was also wondering. I read you held a "bark mitzvah" for Elvis that cost like $10,000. What was up with that? What made you be so extravagant with the dog?

David: Well it started with his first birthday. He was born on New Year's Day, so his first birthday I made him a birthday party. It was a New Year's Day brunch at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, because they're very pet-friendly there. I think it's owned by the Hartz-Mountain people so they allow dogs in the lobby and we could have food around them, so we did that. Then I thought to myself it was such a nice event, it'd be nice to do something on a larger scale for more people. Then I realized based on the calculations in dog years he'd be 13 on November 10, 2007. So I invited a hundred friends and family and colleagues. Dr. Ruth is a friend of mine. We just went all the way and made it like a real bar mitzvah, but it was a bark mitzvah. We had a bark mitzvah cake, we had a little orchestra, we had dancing. Of course, the dog doesn't know what's going on. It was a wonderful excuse to have a party for friends and family. But we videotaped it. This is how I came to be on the show. I have a website. It's a medical education website for doctors, called thedoctorschannel.com. It's little streaming videos of education. But we have a humor site on there because doctors want to have fun too, so we put the video up there. He has over 50,000 views now of the videotape. And CBS saw it. I got a call one day, "We saw that you gave your dog a bark mitzvah. Would you be interested in being on a reality series?" I thought it was once-in-a-lifetime. They did say, "You're going to be sequestered for a large part of the spring and early summer and without any contact with the outside world. I thought about it. A chance to live with your dog in a big house in California with a big backyard, which we don't have in New York. I said, "Sure, let's do it." And that's how it all came to be. I thought it was CVS that was calling, the drug store.

MSN: How has your relationship with Elvis changed or grown since you've been on the show?

David: I've been asked that question a lot. They say, "Has your bond with your dog gotten stronger since you've been on the show?" I'm totally madly in love with my dog before I got on the show. I choked up yesterday. I got a little embarrassed. I cried at the end. ... The bond was already there. It couldn't grow any stronger even though we were together every second of every minute all the weeks we were out there. I appreciated more what you could learn from your dog. ...

MSN: When it came to the competition itself, what were the highlights and what were the hardest parts?

David: The low point for me, of course, was starting from day one being thrown into the Doghouse, and never having he experience of really being in the house. I wasn't able to bond with people in the house, initially, because I was out in the Doghouse and they're in their rooms and they're giggling and all this stuff was going on. I was sort of like the brown pair of shoes at a black-tie event. So I was frustrated that people didn't know me or get a chance to know me, and that was bothering me a lot. They didn't understand who I was. But the high point was as the weeks wore on, everybody warmed up to me, liked me, liked Elvis and even now, everyone's emailing day in and day out and phone calls, and we're all great friends. I feel like I'm part of the team, but initially I wasn't. That was kind of a low point for me. ... J.D. said to me about Elvis, "We can make it comfortable for Elvis in one of the large closets. We can put down a bed and some pads." I looked at him like, "What, he's going to live in the closet because you think he's wild? You're crazy."

MSN: Did you get help from the show in training your dog?

David: No, you're on your own. What was nice was some of the fellow housemates would give you advice, solicited and unsolicited. I said thank you because there's a quarter of a million dollars at stake and I appreciate that you would take time out to help me and give advice. Now there is a trainer on the set for different reasons -- to test out the equipment with her dogs and make sure it's safe and things. Now and then you could ask advice. There was limited time and it couldn't be unfair. It had to be in front of everyone else. ... But basically you were on your own. Whether they thought I was no threat so let's help David, he certainly can't win the show with Elvis, so let's help him, I don't know. But they were all very nice.

MSN: Last night, you sort of got thrown under the bus by Laurie. I was wondering how you felt about that.

David: We hear certain things, but when you're standing there, it doesn't all sink in. You're standing there and you don't know. It's more dramatic when you can watch it again. You know what? I don't even remember she made the comment that Elvis was doing a lot of biting. I didn't remember that. ... Laurie did send me an e-mail yesterday morning, not knowing what would be shown. She said, "David, I want to apologize in advance. I don't know what they're going to show, but I want to apologize." We're great friends. We're emailing and we're talking every day. She's going to come up and visit me. Look, it is a competition, and there is a quarter of a million dollars at stake so I really have no hard feelings over it.

MSN: So what's going to become of you and Elvis from here on in?

David: I do have to say that when Andy Warhol says everyone has 15 minutes of fame, I'm totally loving this 15 minutes of fame. I probably have about 23 seconds left of fame because everyone will move on to the next contestant. But it was great to taste it. It certainly was once in a lifetime. And it's back to work and what I do. Elvis is right here on his bed underneath my desk chewing on a bone, and life goes on. I would love to get out the message how therapeutic a pet can be.

- posted by Raoul