How did Skylark Get Fat?

I currently own two dogs: Suki and Skylark. Skylark is fat. 

These aren’t dogs that the adjective “fat” typically modifies. They’re English Pointers, hard core, hard running, bird-hunting machines.  Labs are fat, Welsh Corgis are fat, cocker spaniels are fat. But not pointers; you can ask anybody. So I was somewhat taken aback when, upon gazing at the formerly svelte and muscular Skylark, I saw that she had indeed become matronly. She was only four; a fat pointer at that age is the equivalent of a high school distance runner with a beer gut. 

How could she possibly have got that way? Hmmm.

I decided to run her portly little butt into the ground. That would burn up some calories! Last summer, at least twice a week, I took both dogs to a farm outside town, slapped a roading harness on them, and let them drag logging chains up and down hills for a half hour. Chain dragging for canines is like weight lifting for humans, and every dog I’ve owned, bar none, has loved it. Both Suki and Skylark stand on my tailgate while I fit them into their harnesses, shivering with anticipation. 

By the time hunting season rolled around, I was heading into the mountains with two superbly conditioned canine athletes. But Skylark was still fat. 

This was getting embarrassing. I mean, I wrote magazine columns about dog training for years. Surely I could figure this out. And then it dawned on me: could I be over feeding her? Hmmm.

I feed my dogs high quality food, and the instructions on the package give a recommended amount of food that correlates to the size of the animal. After a lifetime of owning dogs, I’ve found these recommendations are largely accurate. The package recommendations showed that Skylark was getting about the right amount of food, but with a 45 pound dog, even a few ounces of food one way or another can make a difference. I cut her daily food intake by half a cup, and two months later she was back to 40 pounds, her fighting weight.  

And then it occurred to me: me. Hmmm.