There’s a trope that happensx when a TV show was struggling, they’d introduce new characters to try and get back some of the show’s mojo. In the case of The Brady Bunch, they introduced Cousin Oliver as a cute little kid to get back some of that (I suppose) little kid energy. Same thing with Scooby Doo- when the ratings started to flag, they introduced Scrappy Doo as Scooby’s cousin.
Wow! This pretty much captured it completely!
If they ran out of cool mystery ideas, they should have stopped making the show, rather than introducing a character that changed the show completely.
In universe, very good dogs can almost talk, except for this new dog that, for some reason, can talk loudly and annoyingly.
That’s not how the breakfast cereal business works.