""Melissa and Joey" is recorded in front of a live studio audience." "Oh, what a perfect morning." "I've got my man, I've got my nephew, he has his girlfriend, and she has her baby." "That's right." "And I got my farm fresh ricotta." "Oh, which means later on I'm gonna have a great lasagna." "This day just gets better and better." "Oh, look." "Free smoothie samples." "Get the kale one." "It's the best." "With a shot of kelp." "Mommy, this tastes like medicine." "Oh, and now we know why those are free." " Would you?" " Sure, yeah." "I'm licensed to drive one of these things." "Oh, what an adorable baby." "You must be so proud." "Oh, well, while she is adorable enough to be mine, actually Stella here is the mom." "Oh." "So that makes you the proud grand..." "For your own sake, do not say that." "Looks like somebody's getting tired, huh?" "Yeah." "Hey, we'll meet you guys back at the house, okay?" "That is, if I don't get pulled over for speeding first." "All right, Isabel, you ready to ride shotgun?" "Here we go!" "Vroom vroom!" "Well, ryder sure is good with that baby." "Yeah, well, he and Isabel have similar interests..." "Naps and boobs." "Look, Joe." "Dog adoptions." "Oh, look at this little guy." "He is so cute." "Yeah, he's adorable." "Use some hand sanitizer." "We might be touching later." "It's so sad." "He's an orphan." "Please, sir, may I have a home?" "Look, he fits in my arms perfectly, and he already knows my name." ""Burke!" "Burke Burke Burke!"" "Come on." "Let's take him." " No." " Why not?" "You want all 500 reasons, or just the top two?" "All right, number one, you're gone all day at work, and number two, I am not babysitting your shedding furball." "He can hear you." "Come on." "It's really not the right time for you and me to be adopting a dog." "You can see that, right?" "Yeah, you're right." "It's not a good time now." "But you know what, buddy, it's not you, it's us." "Well, mostly him." "You know what?" "He is gonna find the perfect home, okay?" "I can feel it." "Joe, look who found the perfect home." "Mel, honey, I thought we talked and agreed that we weren't getting a dog." ""I'm Wendell."" "Oh, jeez." "You named it?" "Look, we didn't get a dog." "I got a dog." "And Wendell here is now a part of that independent" "Joe-free portion of my life, which includes thousand island dressing and watching "The View."" "But, Mel, after careful consideration and logic, we decided it wasn't the best time." "That was your decision." "My decision was based on how cute he is." "Oh, yeah." "Oh, watch this." "Hey." "Wendell, kill the pig." "Kill the pig." "Come on." "Wow, so at least we know that we're gonna be safe if we ever happened to be attacked by toy pigs." "Let me ask you something, Mel." "How do you plan to care for this completely untrained animal when you're down in city hall all day doing..." "Whatever the hell it is you do down there?" "Okay, now you're just finding problems that don't exist." "There are dog-sitters on every street corner just waiting to be called." "Those are homeless people." "There are teenagers in this neighborhood that would pay me to look after an adorable dog like Wendell." " We'll find somebody." " Yeah, and what if we don't?" "I gotta tell you, not a dog person." "What?" "!" "Who are you?" "I didn't just say I owned slaves." "I'm just not a big fan of anyone who wipes their butt on the carpet." "Well, don't worry, Joe." "I promise you'll never have to lift a finger to care of this adorable bundle of unconditional love." "Oh, look." "How can you hate a face like that?" "Dude, what are you doing to the baby?" "I've got the heat setting on low." "How did you end up putting a hair dryer on her?" "Okay, so first," "I shared my guacamole with her, right?" "Okay, I'm all caught up." "She overflowed her diaper three times, so I had to give her a bath in the sink." "You moved all the dishes out of there first though, right?" "They weren't in the way." "And we're getting new dishes." "Anyway, she went through four outfits, and I went through two, so figured this made the most sense to wear." "You know, you don't always have to keep volunteering to watch her, man." "Stella had marching band practice, all right?" "If I hadn't helped, she would have had to drop out." "Okay, I just got a waft of something." "Was that you or her?" "I hope it was me." "Yeah, it was me." "I just met Wendell, our new dog." "Uh, it's not our dog." "It's your aunt's dog." "All right?" "She's gonna be the one taking care of it." "I just posted this on Instagram, and look at how many likes he got." "Everybody likes him." "Not everybody." "Oh, look at those ears." "He's adorable." "Mmm." "Hey, what about little Isabel here?" "I'd say she's pretty cute." "Oh, man!" "This is my last clean swimsuit." "Stop looking at me." "I'm not your owner." "Morning, Joe." " See you, Joe." " Hey, wait wait wait wait." "Where's that dog-sitter that your aunt hired?" "Oh, right." "Natalie just called." "Her mom caught her in the shower with her boyfriend, and when I say her boyfriend, I mean her mom's boyfriend." "So anyway, she got grounded and isn't coming." "Who's gonna be taking care of your aunt's dog then?" "Can you do something to help out?" "I already tweeted like a hundred pictures of him doing really cute stuff." "Oh, you did?" "That's not helping." "No, it is, okay?" "I tweeted "boy, did I have a ruff day."" "That's cute, huh?" "I have a class." "Good luck." "Lennox?" "What, you think you can win me over, huh?" "Really?" "You're a rat with a collar." " Hey, Joe." " Mel, listen..." "Look, we're in the middle of a meeting." "We're about to vote on a very important issue." "I vote the falafel place." "We did Indian last week." "Hey, Mel, I hate to be one of those boyfriends who says "I saw this coming,"" "but day one, day one, doggie day care is off the rails." "But I booked Natalie." "Yeah, Natalie's stuck in the shower." "She ain't coming." "All right?" "So what do you plan to do for your dog today?" "Ooh, can you put Wendell on?" "I want to tell him I love him." "Uh, no." "He's busy right now." "What's he doing?" "Something I can't." "When are you getting home?" "Joe, I'm really stuck." "I'm begging you." "Watch Wendell for one day." " No, I can't." " Thanks." "Ooh, you're the best boyfriend ever." "Mel." "Well, I'm glad you like entertaining yourself, pal." "'Cause you're on your own for the rest of today." "Dude, what are you doing?" "Forget it, all right?" "I'm not opening the..." "All right, you pain in the ass, let's go." "Sorry I'm a few minutes late." "Yeah." "23 minutes, actually, Frank, but who's counting?" "Anyway, we'll do what we can we the time we have left, all right?" "We're gonna start with biceps." "Three sets of hammer curls." "Hey, you got a dog." "Does he have a name?" "I can tell you what I call him." "And if he knows what's good for him, he's gonna stay out of my way today." "Yeah." "All right." "We're in." "Hammers." "Ready, go." "One, two..." "Come on now, you only got one more set after this." "We're going till fail." "Come on, five more." "You can do this." "You can probably do this." "Okay, come on." " Good." " Hey, Joe." "Blake, hey look, can you just hang out for a couple minutes?" " I'm running a little behind." " I'm on a really tight schedule." "I know, he just has one more set." "When I say noon, I mean noon." "I don't have time to sit around and wait for some..." "Cute little puppy!" "I'm sorry." "I'm sorry." " What did I tell you..." " Don't you dare!" "Well, aren't you the sweetest thing?" "Oh, goodness." "No!" "You're done, you're done!" "Will you stop lifting?" "Take your time." "We are good." "Hey..." "The dog's baby-sitting your clients for you." "You ought to give him a raise." "Thanks for baby-sitting again, ryder." "Yeah, Isabel and I had time to work on our peek-a-boo." "She found me every time." "Right behind the hands, right?" "Oh, impressive." "You and I can peek-a-boo all day tomorrow." "Don't you have that marching band trip?" "It's an amusement park with roller coasters, ryder." "I can't take Isabel." "She pukes enough as it is." "Well, if you want I can watch her." "No no, I couldn't let you do that three days in a row." "Besides, you and I have a date tomorrow night." "Yeah, I know." "But we can go on a date when you get back." "Come on, Isabel and I got a good thing going on here." "We're on season two of "The Sopranos,"" "but a lot of it just goes right over her head." "Here you go, buddy." " Are you sure about this?" " Positive." "Oh, you're the best." "I wish I knew how to thank you." "Bet you could think of a few ways she could thank you." "What's that supposed to mean?" "Ohh." "I have no ulterior motives for baby-sitting, Joe." "Ryder, stop it." "Come on, it's just us guys." "You can be honest." "Well, I wouldn't say no if Stella decided to reward me in some meaningful way." "Mm-hmm." "I really want a reward." "Welcome to the rest of your life, buddy." "Here, I guess you earned one today." " Hey, adorable." " Hey, Mel." "Hi, Joe." "Look, I got you a present." "You got me a present?" "What'd you get me?" "You got me a..." "Five pack of beer?" "It's a long walk up the driveway." "This is top-shelf microbrew." "Because I am genuinely appreciative of you watching Wendell for me all day." "Yeah, well, it was a struggle, but somebody had to do it." "Well, I've got budgets to read, so I am gonna take Wendell, who is my responsibility and my love muffin, up to my room." "Oh, and you get to sleep over tomorrow night." "I'm there for that." "Hey, what's wrong?" "Oh, I know what you want." "Oh yeah." "You want this." "What's the matter?" "You don't want your favorite toy?" "You broke my dog." "What?" "That's ridiculous." "No, I didn't." "We just hung out today." "He watched me train a few people and we went for a run." "Come here, buddy." "Come here, come here." " There we go." " Oh, I get what's going on here." "Yeah, you're tired and cranky because the scary man made you go for a run." "Mommy would never do that." "Oh, no she wouldn't." "Oh, no she wouldn't." "I think even the dog thinks that what you're doing is annoying." "No, he doesn't." "Oh, no he doesn't." "Mel." "Listen, sweetie, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but next time you come in here, could you maybe use a little mouthwash?" "Joe, have you seen Wendell?" "Joe, how could you?" "!" "This is not what it looks like." "He's in your bed." "What else could it be?" "I didn't even know he was in here." "Yeah." "You deliberately stole my dog's affections, and after I was kind enough to let you play with him all day." "I'm sorry, you let me play with him?" "Yes." "Yeah." "But I had no idea you'd take advantage of an innocent animal." "What do you think happened in here?" "I bet the whole time you were on the phone complaining about how busy you were, you were really rubbing Wendell's tummy." "That's my tummy." "You know what, Mel?" "There were several reasons why I didn't want to get this dog." "And this is one of them." "He's coming between us." "No, apparently I'm the one coming between this" "B.F.F. sleepover." "You know what?" "Fine." "Stay here with your little friend." "But just so you know, he told me he hates your entire species." "Huh?" "Yeah." "Think about that." "Mel, come on." "I didn't know you then." " Hey." " Hey, there she is." "Look how beautiful you look." "Come here." "Let me take those bags from you." "Take a load off." "Your feet must be killing you after a long, arduous day of shopping in the mall." "Let me pour you a nice glass of wine here." "Okay, what is going on here?" "Holy crap!" "My mother's here." "Nope." "If that were the case," "I'd be pouring something a lot stronger than wine." "Okay, so what's up?" "Why are you so happy to see me?" "Well, yes I am happy to see you, but you know who else is happy to see you?" "Wendell, come here, buddy." "Come here." "Look who's here." " Mommy's home." " Hey, baby." "Oh, you do love me." "Oh, he really does love me." "Of course he loves you." "What's not to love, huh?" "He knows who he belongs to." "Hey, Wendell, come here, buddy." "You're going too far." "Dog treats?" "So you're trying to bribe my dog to love me with bacon?" "Hey, Joe, there's some guy outside." "He says he's here for a training session." "Okay, thanks." "All right, well, I'm gonna leave you two alone for some quality mommy, Wendell bonding." "And you know, you guys should be able to learn about each other's..." "Okay, are you putting bacon in my pocket?" "What?" "No." "Look, you can't just line my pockets with pork to get the dog to love me." "It would have worked." "I'm telling you." "All right, I gotta go." "I have a client." "Yeah, you're not fooling anybody." "Go, run and be with your boyfriend." "You know, I take a poor orphan dog into my home and this is the thanks I get?" "I should take him to the pound." "You can't do that to Wendell." "I meant Joe." "But didn't Joe do a nice thing by trying to trick the dog into loving you?" "Well, he shouldn't have to trick Wendell into loving me." "He's my dog." "I'm the one that wanted something small and helpless that I could hold in my arms like a little..." " Baby?" " No." "Small dog." "Where'd you get "baby"?" "I'm not ready for that." "Oh my God, you so want a baby." "What?" "!" "No." "Maybe." "Okay, well then maybe you should give Joe a clue about why you really got a dog." "Are you kidding?" "The last thing a guy in a new relationship wants to hear is the phrase "I want"" "followed by the word "baby."" "So you're not even gonna try to be honest with Joe?" "Oh, honey." "Okay, so what, you're just gonna bury your feelings and dress Wendell up in little outfits?" "Oh, you gotta see this adorable hoodie I got him." "Oh, look." "It's so cute." "Hey, Joe, can I borrow the car keys tonight?" "'Cause Stella and I are finally getting some alone time." "Well, if that's the case, I think it's time you and I have a little man-to-man chat." "Look, fun is great and everything, but tonight, you make sure you treat her with the kindness and respect that she deserves." "Joe, no." "I don't think you understand." "I totally respect women." "Stella will be totally fine." "No, I was talking about my car." "Just got her detailed." "All right." "Hey, you respect Stella too." "See you, aunt Mel." "I'm off for my date." "Oh, be safe, and no "T. N.D."" "Texting and driving, "T. N.D."" "Right, yeah." "No one calls it that." "The cool kids do." "Hey, Joe, about Wendell, look, I was wrong to ignore your feelings and adopt him." "And Lennox and I were talking earlier about him, and I realized there's something I need to tell you." "What?" "Well, it's just that..." "I want to...well, not now, but someday..." "Have the dog micro-chipped." "Okay." "What do you say, Wendell?" "Oh, look." "He came Tome." "And there's no bacon anywhere." "Is there?" "No no." "He is loving you all on his own." "I gotta tell you something too, Mel." "I probably should have been more open-minded to your not so terrible idea of us getting a dog." "'Cause you know, he's a good dog." "And I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but I like our dog." "Oh, and I like the sound of that." ""Our" dog." "Wendell's not our dog." "Wait, what?" "You know how I posted those picture of him under "#CutestDogInToledo"?" "Well, he's got 9,000 followers, but one of them turns out to be his actual owner." " He's lying." " No, look." "He sent pictures as proof." "That dog looks nothing like Wendell." "Put Wendell in a "bitches be crazy" shirt, and it's him." "Wendell is so much cuter than that dog." "Yeah, and this dog's name is Paxton." "Who names their dog Paxton?" "Here, Paxton." "Oh, come on now, it doesn't mean anything." "I mean, you call a dog like that, he's gonna respond." "Just like if you said "here, biscuit,"" "or "here, princess."" "See?" "Same reaction as "here, Paxton."" "He's not our dog, Mel." "Well, I had a great time today, so thanks again for making me go on the marching band trip." "No, you don't need to thank me." "Unless you want to." "I mean, I wouldn't stop you." "What guy doesn't like to be thanked?" "Oh my God." "The bus ride home was crazy." "It turned into one big wild party." "Sounds like a good time." "Ugh, no." "I ended up just moving to the front and working on my English paper." "You know, when you're responsible like that, it really brings out your eyes." "Yeah, I've been working really hard to get my G.P.A. up so I can get a scholarship to a good college." "You know what?" "I'm gonna do it." "Hey, I respect that." "So much." "Yeah, I mean, when I really want something," "I just go for it." "Me too." "And I know I made a really big mistake last year." "The whole world knows it, but I'm not getting anywhere near making that sort of mistake again." "Huh." "I mean, now is just not the time in my life for anymore sex." "You know, that is..." "That's not a decision you need to make right now, Stella." "But with Isabel's father, it was just sex sex sex all the time." "It never stopped." "Sounds like hell." "But you helped me realize that there's more to that in a relationship." "You know, there's compatibility and kindness." "Just hanging out and getting to know each other." "You know what I mean?" "Yeah." "I do." "I really do." "Sitting here with you looking up at the stars, it's pretty great." " Can I ask you one thing?" " Yeah." "Can you put your arm around me again?" "Yeah, I can do that." "Wendell..." "Paxton," "I want you to know that while this has been your home for awhile, the place you're going now is your real home." "That's right." "Where they were irresponsible and didn't keep track of you." " Joe." " What?" "He deserves to know the truth." "Huh?" "Don't you?" "Don't you deserve it?" "Don't you deserve to know..." "I don't know what the hell just happened right now." "Well, remember, mommy and daddy will always love you." "Mommy and daddy." "Well, yeah, I guess..." "I guess that's what you are when you have a dog, right?" "Well, I never really thought about it before ever, but I guess so." "Mel, I think that's part of the reason why I was so resistant to us getting a dog in the first place." "Because it's kind of like us having a baby." "That's what you thought?" "Well, yeah." "Raising teenagers is one thing, but starting from scratch, that's intimidating." "Really?" "You intimidated?" "I bet you'd make a great dad." "Well, that's a safe bet." "Yep, and someday, maybe we'll have one of our own." " A dog." " Of course a dog." "Absolutely." "Dog." "A tiny little baby dog." "I don't get it." "Why does he like you more?" "Dogs are pack animals." "And they just naturally gravitate toward the Alpha." " You can't take it personally." " Oh, you're the Alpha?" "In my house?" "I'm the Alpha wherever I go, baby." "Dogs just respond to strength, you know?" "Why else would he like me so much?" "Hi, I'm Vic Spinelli." "I'm here for my dog, Paxton." "Hey, I'm Joe Longo." " Hey." " Hey." "Wait, "Longo fit"?" "I saw your ad at the health food store." " Oh, yeah?" " Yeah." "I run "Vic's Crossfit"." "I heard good things." "Listen, thanks for taking care of my dog." "Hey, Pax, wait for me." "Amazing." "What?" "Same shirt, same build." "Even the same cologne." "Vic is you." "You're Vic." "That's why the dog liked you more." "That skinny guy?" "Hey, just remember something." "Your Alpha's right over here, baby." "Oh, yeah?" "Well, you're only the Alpha in one room in this house." "The kitchen."