I have some bad news for the throngs in the blogosphere who have been anxiously awaiting an update on our dog’s weight reduction program after reading my initial "Oh great, our dog is fat" posting six months ago. Serena just got a new Pet Health Report Card, and things aren’t going so well. All because of me, supposedly.
The green highlighting on the Report Card was put there by Laurel to grab my attention. And the “so no more cheese!” entry in the “Weight (Abnormal)” category also can be attributed to Laurel, since the only way the vet could have found out about this canine nutrition supplement that I have been adding to Serena’s dinner is if someone in our household snitched.
Given that Serena can’t talk (and even if she could, would never do anything to jeopardize his cheese treats) and I didn’t go to the vet appointment, the snitch is pretty easy to identify. I sensed another subtle clue that it was Laurel when she yelled at me, after returning from the Pet Medical Center, “I wish you could have been there to hear what the vet had to say about Serena’s weight!”
Me? Little innocent me? Putting on my most innocent expression, I said: “What do you mean I should have been there? You and I both feed the dog.” “Yes, but you are the only one who adds chunks of cheese to her bowl.”
OK, that’s true. But as I wrote last June, my initial caloric calculations were that Serena would experience a net loss in weight by my giving her some small chunks of cheese each night, per the formula NWC = CC – TWE (in layman’s terms, Net Weight Change equals Cheese Consumption minus Tail Wagging Exertion).
I had figured that the calories Serena burned up wagging her tail while I got the cheese out of the refrigerator, cut a few slices, chopped the slices into tiny chunks, and scattered the chunks on top of her regular dog food would be greater than the calories in the cheese. However, apparently my formula needs some refining, since the experimental results from the vet’s scale show a weight gain of 3.7 pounds from June 21 to December 30.
We had friends over for a New Year’s Eve party last night. I asked the first dog owners who walked in the door, Hans and Laura, if they thought Serena was fat. If I got a “no” from them, then I was going to ask the first lawyer who walked in the door what my chances would be if I filed a malpractice suit against the vet who wrongly diagnosed our dog as obese.
But after both of them felt Serena’s rib cage, I got two responses of “Yes, she’s fat.” So I’ve given up on plans for the lawsuit. Still, I still don’t believe the diagnosis. Doesn’t this look like a wonderfully thin dog to you?
I’m complying with Laurel’s orders though, and have just been putting a miniscule sprinkling of parmesan cheese on Serena’s dinner. This is necessary, I believe, to ease her through the symptoms of cheddar cheese withdrawal. We’re also reducing her regular dog food a bit.
Today is Serena’s birthday. The Millennium Dog is five! She got an extra large chew stick for dessert a little while ago. On your birthday, calories don’t count.
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