Ignorance is bliss - not knowing what he weighed. At the vet, they have him walk onto the big, flat scale, I get him situated and the weight never completely settles but it does hover somewhere between 90.0 and 91.3!!!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me, that dog I've been lifting weighs close to 100 lbs and not the 72 I suspected?! He weighed 72 the last time we went and I guess cutting off all his hair made him look, if not smaller, then certainly not any beefier. Is beefier a word?

They jab him twice, get him to stop wiggling all over the place long enough to listen to his little heart and lungs and declare him fit. I tell the vet I have a few questions.

Is he fat? Yes, yes he is. Oh. So how fat? Well, he shouldn't lose more than 7-8 lbs, but they're not real concerned. So I mentally figure if I not only cut back on the dogfood a bit, and quit giving him treats every time he decides to come in when I call him, rather than run down to the bottom of the yard to eat a bit more mushroom manure, that may do it. If I can figure out how to make him quit stealing our old dog's food, that should surely put him in the green dog BMI.

Okay, so does he walk funny? Does it matter that he lays sort of like a frog, or a chicken sitting on eggs? Well, it is sort of strange, but the vet thinks it's more behavioral rather than a structural problem. He just seems to like to lie down with his little feet sticking out behind him.

Mr. Vet, do you think neutering him at 7 months made his growth plates do weird things, that made him really long, or could he possibly have spent too much time in the kennel and that made him grow extra long and walk all wiggly, because that's what the dog trainer told me? The vet watches him awhile, then tells me they neuter at 7 months every single day they're open, and they've never seen a good report that says anything about over-kenneling producing extra long torsoed dogs.

Whew! I was worried. And what's going on with his teeth? Are all his adult teeth in, or is he still teething, because I'm wondering why we have a rash of amputee Barbie's and Ken's, perfectly good plastic dolls that have stood the test of time for almost 20 years and recently this dog has been eating limbs left and right?

No Ma'am, his adult teeth have been in for months, there are no shots to prevent love of all things plastic. Sad, sad trash. Ken looks like he's been swimming with sharks, and there's just something really pitiful about little Barbie feet chewed up into little pieces all over the basement playroom.

So I'm wondering, how many calories in a lump of mushroom manure or a Ken leg? Hey, I could use losing about 7-8 lbs, we're about to buy an ellyptical. I wonder, if the dog won't jump up into the back of the car, maybe we could get him to shove those paws into the foot pedals of the ellyptical and go to town. But then, they're plastic. Maybe not such a great idea.