Doggone It

"Doggone It" is episode number 3.1 of the Happy Tree Friends television series.

Plot
As Lifty and Shifty drive away, Pop takes Cub to a pet store to buy a dog. Pop sees and falls in love with a cute puppy, named Whistle, while Cub has his heart set on a vicious dog that is locked up in a steel cage. Pop denies Cub's wishes, but Cub soon grows to like Whistle as much as Pop.

Elsewhere, Lumpy, an animal catcher, is contacted via a radio in his truck to attend to an urgent issue. As Lumpy arrives at the scene, he finds a hysterical Cuddles covered in purple bruises. Cuddles explains to Lumpy what happened and then runs away in fear. Lumpy opens the door to a nearby house, only to have tentacles pop out of the door and windows of the house. He looks in to see a giant squid clutching Sniffles, Handy, Petunia, and Toothy in its grasp. Lumpy readies a mouse trap, enters the house, and handily disables the squid, dragging it behind him to his truck, with Petunia and Sniffles still in its tentacles.

Back at Pop's house, Cub happily plays with Whistle in his bedroom. Pop leaves the room, whistling as he goes, but returns to the room upon hearing Cub screaming. He enters the room to find blood everywhere and Whistle attacking Cub's lower body. As Lumpy finishes tying the squid to the back of his truck, he gets a call from Pop, himself now being attacked by Whistle, to come help. Lumpy arrives and Pop places Whistle in Lumpy's net. As Lumpy gets back to his van, however, he discovers that Whistle chewed through his net and ran off.

Meanwhile, Giggles puts a tea kettle on the stove and takes a basket of laundry outside. As she begins hanging her laundry on a clothesline, a bird flies down and Whistle approaches. Giggles begins hugging and playing with him but when the bird whistles, Whistle begins viciously attacking Giggles. Lumpy hears Giggles' screams, but he arrives too late to save her. He spots the dead Giggles, who is missing all the skin on her body except for her head, and Whistle, who is sitting there happily wagging his tail.

Lumpy is confused and thinks about the situation, when Giggles' tea kettle begins to whistle. Whistle suddenly gets aggressive and begins biting Lumpy's chest. Lumpy pulls Whistle off of him and throws Whistle into the streets near Mime. Mime sees The Mole driving down the road, about to hit Whistle. As Lumpy hops over a fence, Mime blows on a whistle to warn The Mole, causing Whistle to grow aggressive and attack The Mole in his car. The Mole's car swerves near Disco Bear, who struts down the sidewalk. Mime blows his whistle again to warn Disco Bear of the approaching vehicle, but this only causes Whistle to start attacking Disco Bear.

Lumpy begins thinking about the connection of Whistle's attacks, slowly connecting the dots in his head. By now, Whistle has begun tearing out Disco Bear's intestines and runs away with them as Disco Bear follows. Mime once more blows his whistle, causing Whistle to turn his sights on Mime. Lumpy has finally figured out that whistles are what trigger Whistle's aggression, and he tackles Mime just as Whistle is about to attack him. While Lumpy accidentally swallows the whistle, Mime is knocked halfway into the road where his head is run over by a car.

As Lumpy struggles to breathe with the whistle in his throat, he lets out whistling noises which cause Whistle to chase after him. Lumpy is brutally attacked by Whistle, but he is able to escape and hide. He successfully coughs up the whistle, but when he lets out a whistle of relief, Whistle appears and chases Lumpy up a tree. At night, when Whistle is asleep, Lumpy finally climbs down from the tree. Lumpy picks up the now quiet Whistle, but he's shocked to see the squid attached to his truck has freed its tentacles and is now sitting right-side up. Lifty and Shifty's van approaches where the two brothers fight over a dollar. They scream when they see the squid, which fires ink at them for protection. Unable to see the road in front of them, they slam their van into a tree, fly through the windshield, and are crushed to death when they fly into the tree.

The back of their van opens up and hundreds of dogs identical to Whistle fall out of the back, knocking Whistle out of Lumpy's hands. Not knowing which is Whistle, Lumpy blows on Mime's whistle. One of the dogs arches its back and snarls, leading Lumpy to believe he's found the right one, when suddenly all of the other dogs do likewise. The dogs begin jumping on Lumpy, tearing him to pieces. Before the episode ends, we see two dogs fighting over one of Lumpy's antlers.

Moral
"Let Sleeping Dogs Lie!"

Deaths

 * 1) Sniffles, Petunia, Handy, and Toothy die from being attacked by a giant squid. Toothy and Handy's deaths, however, are debatable, as they are not seen being slammed to the ground like Petunia, and neither of their bodies are seen in the squid's grasp as Lumpy drags the squid away (though this could mean that the squid swallowed them).
 * 2) Cub may have died from being attacked by Whistle. However, he suffered similar injuries in And the Kitchen Sink, so Pop may have rescued Cub and taken him to a hospital before Whistle did fatal damage. For more information, see Cub's Death
 * 3) Giggles is skinned alive and attacked by Whistle.
 * 4) The Mole is mauled by Whistle.
 * 5) Disco Bear's entrails are torn out by Whistle.
 * 6) Mime's head is run over by a car.
 * 7) Lifty and Shifty crash their van into a tree and are crushed to death when they fly into the tree.
 * 8) Lumpy is torn to pieces by numerous dogs resembling Whistle.

Goofs

 * 1) The directions of Lumpy's antlers change numerous times throughout the episode.
 * 2) As Giggles is hanging on a branch, her clothes disappear from the clothesline.
 * 3) The washtub Giggles falls into doesn't appear until she lets go of the tree branch.
 * 4) When Giggles screams as her skin is ripped off, there is skin on her hands. When she falls to the tub, however, the skin is off her hands.
 * 5) Though Whistle mauls Giggles, there are no visible wounds (aside from her missing skin) on her body.
 * 6) The distance between The Mole's car and Whistle changes dramatically between shots.
 * 7) When Lumpy dive tackles Mime they both move to right while the whistle flies to the left. When they hit the ground, however, the whistle lands in Lumpy's mouth.
 * 8) The distance Lumpy is from Lifty and Shifty's van changes between the time they crash into the tree and when their back doors fly open.

Trivia

 * 1) When Whistle begins tearing Giggles' skin off her buttocks, it is a parody of the Coppertone sunscreen logo
 * 2) This is the only episode of the TV series that Pop starred in without causing the death of any characters (he may have indirectly killed Cub when he started whistling, though Cub may have just been injured).
 * 3) This is the first episode in which Cuddles survives.
 * 4) This is one of the few episodes where The Mole doesn't kill or harm anybody despite being killed himself.
 * 5) Whistle is based on Ken Pontac's dog of the same name, who also provides Whistle's voice.
 * 6) When this episode aired along with Concrete Solution and Sea What I Found on YouTube, the alternate title for the conglomeration of the segments was named "The Third Degree." Lifty, Shifty, Pop, Cub, Cuddles, and Lumpy, appear in all three episodes. Lumpy (and possibly Cub) died in all three episodes they appear in, while Pop survives in all three episodes.
 * 7) When Lumpy realises his net is destroyed he says " what the fuck?!"