Okay, so I have always taken pride in the health of my dog. I take pride in this because I am not very healthy, so I figure I should at least have the dog be a good example for my children. This summer, though, we had to ship the dog off to my in-laws house as we tried to sell our home in Virginia. In the two or so months that they had the dog, he either found some endless supply of hot dogs or was overfed because the guy is huge.
At first when we got him back, I didn't think anything was wrong because he hadn't really had a hair cut in a while. He was a little harder to lift, but he is a pretty hairy dog, as far as dogs go, so I thought all the extra hair was weighing him down. Anyway, the truth bared its ugly (and, may I add, obese) head when I went to get him his traditional "short" at our new groomer, "The Hair of the Dog." Anyway, when came to pick him up, I didn't recognize him. (No seriously, I almost walked out with some other person's dog. If someone hadn't said, "Wait, I think that is Frank," I probably would have ended up with a new dog. By the way, who names their dog "Frank?" That poor dog needs his name legally changed. Really, people have got to get better at naming their dogs. Though, I suppose Frank isn't bad for a wiener dog (actually, it is an awesome name for a wiener dog, now that I think about it, but this Frank was not a wiener dog.).)
Anyway, all of this is beside the point. The truth is that now not only am I overweight, my dog is too. I immediately put him on a diet and exercise routine. The diet part hasn't been to bad (at least, it hasn't been too tough for me to feed the dog less). The exercise part hasn't gone so well. I have been taking him out running with me. The first day he did great. Lots of energy, he bounded up the street and made me look worse than my normal running self (seriously, when an eight-inch-high lap dog can run faster than you, you have a problem).
I thought we would have the dog back in shape in no time. Then, I took him out the second day. Not so lucky. The dog immediately realized that I was trying to make a habit of him running, and he stopped running. Literally, he did that stick-out-my-legs-to-stop-you-from-being-able-to-drag-me-without-either-expending-vast-amounts-of-energy-or-strangling-me-to-death thing that dogs do when they don't want to go somewhere on a leash. It was quite frustrating dragging him through the neighborhood for two miles without any help from the dog. By day three, I realized that it was either the dog or me, and the dog's exercise regimen ended.
It is kind of sad, really. I was kind of excited to have an exercise partner that I could trust. Someone who would never judge me by what I looked like on the outside, only what I looked like on the inside. Someone who cared enough to stick with me through thick and thin (no pun intended there). But alas, my dog is not that someone. He has chosen to just sit around and wait for the kids to drop food on the floor to feed his addiction to food. Of course, whenever that happens, he is the fastest runner on earth.
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