Episode Details

Supernatural Season 9, Episode 5, Dog Dean Afternoon recap 🐕 The only witness to a murder is a German Shepherd, so Dean drinks a shaman spell and becomes the world’s most reluctant dog person, on Denim-wrapped Nightmares, a Supernatural rewatch podcast.

A taxidermist in Enid, Oklahoma, turns up dead, folded the wrong way, and his specimens’ guts are missing. The only witness is a German Shepherd named Colonel. The solution involves a shaman spell, a truly unpleasant mystery liquid, and Dean barking at the mailman. It’s cheesy chaos, and Berly and LA are not complaining.

Episode Highlights:

• Max the taxidermist, his business Mounted Treasures, and a man in a cowboy hat
• The title was almost “Doggy Style,” and the poodle scene goes on just a little too long
• SNART (Showing No Animal Rough Treatment), plus animal activists hiding something very gross behind very big sunglasses
• A cat snatcher with incredible nails, and blood splooge #75
• Dean drinks the dog-hair potion so Sam doesn’t have to
• The fetch scene (Berly had to pause the TV, she was laughing so hard)
• A pigeon with a vendetta against Baby
• Leslie Jordan voices a Yorkie who wants belly rubs from “the big one”
• Hideous wallpaper that turns out to have eyes
• “Who let the dogs out?” Dean did.

It’s a little cheesy, and it’s the second fantasy episode in a row, so Berly is worried a dark one is coming. LA adored the dogs, Leslie Jordan’s cameo, and the fetch scene, which she says makes the whole episode worth it. Berly’s heart broke for Sam when the villain asks “What are you?”, since that question digs up a lot of old trauma, and Jared Padalecki plays it perfectly. Then Dean has an epiphany of his own at the end. The special effects award goes to the nails. The gore: blood splooge #75, a slashed throat, and plenty of implied violence.

In the lore segment, LA explains what a shaman is, and it gets surprisingly deep. According to José Stevens of The Power Path, shamans believe everything in the universe eats and is eaten. That includes your “inner parasite,” which feeds on anxiety, resentment, and spiraling worst-case thinking, but can’t digest gratitude, love, or joy. Most of us just eat our experiences without ever digesting them, and the Toltec shamans said an eagle collects your leftover emotional baggage when you die. Then LA covers animal spirit archetypes and shamanic shapeshifting, which dates back to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Both hosts spiral into some genuinely relatable self-reflection, and Berly plugs the “three good things” they do on Crapulence, their Patreon-exclusive show.

“I always knew I’d find the source of all evil at a vegan bakery.” – Dean

Your turn, hunters: Did you expect a talking-dog episode to hit you in the feelings? And which animal would you most want to hear talk? Tell us in the Spotify comments, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts (it’s how new hunters find us), or send us fan mail. Bonus points for fandom fun facts we missed.

Sources:

• https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Dog_Dean_Afternoon
• https://thepowerpath.com/articles-by-jose-stevens/new-article-jose-stevens-predator-prey-shamanic-understanding-eating-digesting-experiences/
• https://shamanamulets.com/unveiling-the-mystique-of-animal-parts-in-spiritual-and-magical-practice/
• https://www.voiehopis.com/en/post/shamanic-shapeshifting-animal-totem