Poor Little Fat Boy

Last Tuesday was our first day at our THIRD obedience class with Bingo. We figured we would just keep going until he was perfect (uh huh!). I was feeling quite pleased with myself because I was going to show trainer Jennifer how much Bingo had slimmed down from his previous Thunder Thigh designation. (He's down to 2 cups a day of purely adult Royal Canin food and Fred and I both are taking him on long morning walks.)

I bopped righted out of the car and pranced around to Jennifer and held Bingo out and said, "See how good he looks? He's slimmed right down." Then I think I even leaned back a little waiting for the effusive praise to hit me.



Jennifer looked at Bingo. She smiled. "He's getting there."

"But I can see some ribs and his indentation is much more pronounced!" At this point, I think I must be like the Biggest Loser mom saying her son was eating low-fat yogurt ice cream, which didn't have that many calories.

"His coat looks really good."

Ah. His coat looks really good. That's like the fat girl's "She's got a beautiful face" curse.



I suppose looking at this photo that his coat does look really good and he does have a beautiful face. And if I am really honest, if I look closely at the previous photo (both photos taken by Trapper's mom Gabrielle, BTW, thank you very much!) there might be just the teenstiest beginnings of a paunch, but honestly, how can a dog who's only snack is ice cubes, for Pete's sake, have a paunch? Seriously! I think this is a true case when saying your puppy is big boned is legit. My dog is big boned. There. I said it. He's a big boned lab. He can't help it. He's zaftig.

Poor Bingo. I see more walks in his future. At least he was in the circle of acceptance FROM THE BEGINNING OF CLASS! Woot! That has never happened. At least being big boned has not affected his self confidence. I can assure you of that.

Thunder Thighs

Wednesday night at obedience class, Jennifer stopped me and asked a seemingly innocent question:

“How much are you feeding Bingo?”

“Two cups in the morning and two cups at night,” I said.

“Three cups in the morning and two cups at night,” Fred said.

“WHAT?!” Jennifer hid a smile. I looked at Fred. “Three cups?”

“The manual said if he acts really hungry to feed him some more…during a growth spurt.” Fred said a bit defensively. I’m still sputtering about the three cups. Jennifer is trying not to laugh at us.

Jennifer said, “Well, he’s a little bit….” She looked down at Bingo.

Mind you, last week, someone had told Jan that Bingo was fat and I said, “No way! You can still see his indentation. “ So I quickly point out his indentation to Jennifer.

“Yes,” she agrees patiently. “He does have a good indentation, but you should be able to find his ribs and his spine easily.”

“Oh no. He’s a fatty.” I said.

So Bingo is now on a strict two cup in the morning, two cup at night food schedule. We’ve added in some longer walks to work on his “thunder thighs” as one of my co-workers deemed them.

Poor Bingo… Michelle Obama has it right, childhood obesity really is a problem!