I'm not much of a YouTuber. Sure, I link to YouTube videos all the time, but where it comes to making them, I'm just not motivated, and I don't know why. You'd think that as a blogger I'd be more, um, extroverted about this, but I find the process a bit distasteful, almost exhibitionistic. Many of the videos I've made have involved Coco, but even that strikes me as a bit like making a movie of your kid and then showing it to people who are about as interested in watching it as guests at a party who find themselves forced to watch home movies. (I'm the type who'd suddenly realize while it's been an utterly charming evening I have to get up at six the next morning and really ought to be leaving.)

Not that some of my Coco videos haven't been occasionally successful and amusing; the Hillary Clinton ring tone video drew over five thousand hits. Most of them, however, get a few hundred and that's it.

If Coco had a little more talent (or if I were a better trainer), she (and I) might make it big. I mean, imagine if I could get Coco to talk! I could make millions, and we'd be on Jay Leno with the stretch limousines and all that.

But even if she learns to talk, Coco faces stiff competition. There are already plenty of talking dogs on YouTube.

Here's a dog which made it onto David Letterman for saying "I LOVE YOU!"

In all honesty, I can't really make out the "I LOVE YOU!" It sounds more like a dog screaming.

However, I was able to find three pit bulls that have been trained to say "Obama" well enough that it really does approach the credibility threshold.

I've ranked them here according to talent, with the best first. However, while the first one -- "Kerrington" -- has the most hits (17,551), the one I considered second best -- "Truman" -- has only 75 hits, while "Zoe" comes in at 8,689.

Here's Kerrington, who's pretty good:

And here's Truman -- a close second:

And finally, Zoe:

While it occurred to me that YouTube viewers might not agree with me, I think there is something in the nature of YouTube which is totally unpredictable and random, and has little or nothing to do with fairness, quality of the videos, or anything like that. It was over a year ago that I posted a silly video complaining about a mousetrap that did not work, and like most of my videos, it only got a few hundred hits.

But then recently I noticed it had gotten 3,239 views. Why?

The way I figure this, if I can get over 3000 hits complaining about a mousetrap, then a video of Coco talking ought to really draw them in.

If only Coco would cooperate! I have pointed the camera at her and tried to get her to say "Obama" repeatedly, but in the most stubborn manner possible, she won't even try. (Which means that she's trying not to try!)

What a shame. Because if Coco could just learn to say "Obama," the president himself might come and visit this blog.

But Coco is a smart dog, perhaps too smart. She may fear that there's a slippery slope, and if she complies with my wishes and says "OBAMA!" then the next thing you know I'll try to get her to say "I LOVE YOU!" and then I'd put the two together -- thus making a liar out of my own dog, in flagrant violation of Coco's principles, and possibly even my own.

For the record, Coco favored Hillary over Obama, and I suspect she still does, so I cannot make her lie.

At this rate, I'll never succeed in politics.