Gravity's a bitch

Yep, I'm not afraid to say it out loud.

A nudgy-pushy-destructive-heavyweight bitch. Who lives to eat.

I'm talking about my mother-in-laws old springer spaniel whom we're babysitting while her family is traveling, of course. What did you think?

Why is she called Gravity? Well, according to the Ultimate Other Half she used to fall a lot when she was a pup. From the bed, off the stairs and so on. So he called her Gravity.

Which, looking at her now is a highly appropriate name since there is rarely a dog seen so religiously taking care that even in case of slightly reduced gravity there would be no chance of loosing a ground. Maybe all the time she spent fizzing through the air in her stormy youth has made her paranoid of floating away altogether.

To put it simply - she is humongous. She looks like an ironing table on short furry legs. She used to have a double chin, I kid you not!

That was before she had to seek a refuge in our house four weeks ago.
Grunting with effort she rolled herself out of the car, into the front door and then to kitchen to check out if there's any food in Mutt The Mad's bowl. There wasn't. So she snapped grumpily at Mutt ("Hey, cool, nice to see ya, hey, cool, let's play, hey...") and plonked into the dog bed where she remained, slightly panting with all the effort.

The bed was only very briefly abandoned for extremely short trips to kitchen or garden.

In the evening I discovered that the reason she so patiently stays downstairs when everybody else is upstairs was not an admirable case of doggie-zen. She just couldn't get up the stairs.

There was not a single shudder of horror and compassion in my little cold heart when I put her on a diet.

First results were showing when Gravity actually found enough energy to go hunting-gathering. That, in spoilt pooch world, means "Follow the toddler and hoover up all the bits of dried bananas, raisins, fruit leather, apple, toast etc. he might drop or hand to you. Be persistent and annoying. Make it very clear you WANT the food he's eating. Hover around his high chair when he's having dinner. Beat Mutt The Mad to all the morsels on the floor."

Mutt The Mad learned very quickly that if he wanted to keep the food in his own bowl he'd better a) be fast, b) be prepared to fight for it.

By the beginning of week 3 Gravity was occasionally following me up and down the stairs. Week later she is whizzing around the house, having play fights with Mutt and destroying even more toys (both Mutts and Sprouts, she doesn't discriminate) than usual. I think we now have only one set of wooden puzzles with all the pieces intact and that's the one I took out of wrapper yesterday. Blocks off Sprouts train set have become a sawdust. Most of Mutts soft animals have lost all their stuffing and squeaky ones their squeak.

In a word, Gravity is now hell of a lot happier dog. She is still fat, of course, but the double chin is gone and there is a faint hint around her middle section that someplace there, a long time ago, must have been a waist. One more month and the aforementioned waist would be definitely THERE.

The trouble is Gravity's family is returning from their travels in a week. Back she will go to the land of cookies, chips, fatty bits off cooking, always-full bowls and treats from every person who walks into the door. To the obese dog heaven.

At least we tried.