Every morning, at about 9:00 we get ready to feed the dogs.

The Nearly Perfect Husband heads on into the hall and has them all sit as he scoops out the food…

Blaze is not in this photo, because she is licking my face in an act of utter defiance of the Nearly Perfect Husband (and, I assume, love and worship of me)…

Here is a better photo of this morning, in which Marshal Dillon Dingle has moved closer to the food dishes (he moves slowly, and always in a sitting position, so as to not draw attention to the fact that he moved himself). Blaze has come to sit beside him after washing my face while I tried to take photos.

You can see the intensity that the Shepherds have for their food bowls, right?

You would think that they would dive right in and ravenously devour every last kibble right away by such focus, right?

Nope.

What happens is that Fred dives into his bowl and (and we have timed this), often in under twenty seconds, has cleaned it of every last morsel, checked the floor around it for any kibbles that cut and ran during his feeding frenzy, and then is looking at us…. like this:

And in the mean time, the Shepherds are pretty much using their tongues to pick up their little kibbles – ONE BY ONE – examining them, and deciding whether to chew and swallow.

We are pretty sure they discuss their decisions with each other.

With every. single. kibble.

So The Nearly Perfect Husband sometimes gives Fred a little treat to make him feel better about being the first one done, and having to stand awkwardly (and droopingly) by as the Shepherds discuss their decisions over their meal. And you can tell that Fred is grateful for this distraction because look at his tail.

By the way, that is Blaze’s tail to the right. She is not even one eighth done with her own bowl at this point.

And then, inevitably, Fred cannot contain himself and begins to look for errant kibbles a little too close to the Shepherd’s bowls. And right now you are thinking that I am going to say that Blaze gets all growly and chases him away but I am not.

Fred is a lab. He is goofy, and tippy-tap dance-y and love-y and all those good things that labs are.

But he is also hungry. And will eat just about anything you put in front of him, any time, no matter how much he has had to eat already.

The Fred you see above? That Fred would tell you that he has been on a forced hunger strike for years. And he is still easily ten pounds overweight.

Ten pounds!

He is only a 75 (okay… right now 85) pound dog!

In the past, he has been twenty pounds overweight.*

So we watch him closely.

Because the Shepherds have food ADD (it is too real!), they will happily discuss their kibble consumption, and get completely distracted doing so, as Fred noses his way in and eats all their kibble.

And then the Shepherds will completely forget they had any kibble to begin with and ask to go outside after the huge meal they just consumed.

Then Blaze and Marshal Dillon Dingle end up underweight, while Fred is rolling his way around the house like a sideways Weeble.

Not a good thing.

So what happens?

Every single meal?

Fred finishes, licks his chops, gets a little snack of consolation cheese from the Nearly Perfect Husband.

And, in order to keep him from starving the Shepherds, he ends up…

In potty prison.

Ya. I know.

He’s emaciated.

He could tell you all about it.

Thanks for readin’.

*Thanks to a giant, value box of milk bones that the Old Yankee Man hides in next to his chair, in plain sight, insisting that, when Fred comes in, he just takes one (the freakin’ dog dives in head first and can woof down half a box before the Old Yankee Man even knows he’s in the apartment.)

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