I finished the post below and stood up to stretch. Little Bear had been snoozing by the door and saw this as clear evidence that I wanted to pet him or take him on a Jeep ride or maybe buy him a steak, so he came over to see which it was. I asked if he wanted to go outside, which stupid question he answered by baying and flopping at my feet. In lieu of a Jeep ride or steak, a good belly rub would do.
I try not to fool myself about certain things. Years ago, after it became clear that LB needed to spend his life chained up, I neglected to cut (way!) back on his food intake and he ballooned like Rosie O’Donnell in a Twinkie factory. I fooled myself for a while that he’s just very broad (true) and very hairy (true), but that he wasn’t really becoming obese (false.) When I came to my senses, we started a long and painful diet that included training forbidding him to approach the bowl until Ghost was finished. Because otherwise, in trying to slim LB down, I might starve Ghost right out. LB went through a period where he thought I was forbidding him to eat at all, which of course only made him sneaky. Eventually he got the idea, and very slowly he has been losing bulk. But it’s been years since I could prove that this dog actually possessed ribs.
But now I knelt to give him a good whole-body scratch, and I’d swear I felt…corrugation. In the area where a slimmer dog might keep his ribs.
Could it be? We’re finally getting him down to a healthy enormous weight?
