Leapin' Lizards! 'Today' Has Animal Trainer Give Tips on Training Hubby

Can you imagine the Today show or other MSM program airing a segment offering advice to men on how to train their wives to display better behavior . . . by treating them like zoo animals? A segment illustrated with footage of hyenas, baboons and other members of the wild kingdom undergoing training? Don't bother to answer.

Yet, incredibly, that's just what the Today show did this morning. Oh, with one small difference. It was a how-to . . . for wives who want to train their husbands.

'Today' introduced the segment this way: "One woman discovered she could train her husband the way they train animals at the zoo. Does your husband act like a sea lion, or a baboon, or a hyena?"

Lauer's guest was Amy Sutherland, whose recent article on the subject at the New York Times has apparently proved very popular, being one of the paper's most recently emailed items. Sutherland is the author of 'Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers.'

The segment, narrated by Matt Lauer, was done with a light touch and some sense of humor. And the advice was pretty harmless stuff: use positive reinforcement rather than nagging, take small steps in behavior modification, etc. But it was the very premise of the piece that would have been inconceivable had the roles been reversed.