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The black lab's advice was simple enough. "Eat more, run around less." However, there were subtleties to it that took more time for me to develop and then there were my own body's quirks to work with. The first obstacle I faced came at dinner time of that same day.

I walked out among the excited, barking dogs, fully expecting to eat as much as I had that morning. However, as I began to chomp and swallow my way through the bowls, I realized I was getting full and fast. In fact, I was making myself sick at the end of my second bowl; even less than I'd been eating before. Not wanting to risk losing a precious meal, I had to step away and admit defeat. I noted the shepherd-lab look at me smugly from his own bowl as he continued his usual gorge.

I stumbled back to my place by the fence. I had to wait a long time for the black lab to finish eating, but honestly, I felt embarrassed to see him despite also wanting to ask him so many questions. I wondered if I should wait even longer, he might be irritable if I start questioning him as soon as he's done eating and had no time to "digest properly."

After my spectacle fight with the Alpha, I had no more good friends among the other dogs of the yard other than the staunch blooded lab. I was effectively at the bottom of the pecking order as far as they were concerned, however, my brother did still come to see me and spend time with me, despite our differences and the fact that he was at an age where he was entering the larger "mature" society of the yard himself.

I was feeling too sick to roughhouse with him. He'd finished eating as well, but he never ate so much that he was ill afterwards. Instead he brought me a frayed and smelly rope toy. I grinned at him and we had ourselves a good tug. I was far too heavy for him to budge, but that was good. I wasn't jostled too much and it was a low enough energy activity for me to keep up. He pulled this way and that, making up for my lack of mobility. It was fun and took my mind off of my aching stomach and other matters for a time.

My brother grew bored after a while and dropped the rope to wander off. I saw a member of his younger entourage tackle him and they began to chase each other. Already they looked exhaustingly energetic to my eyes, despite the way their own round tummies jiggled as they ran heedlessly as I used to. The black lab was no where to be seen. I knew he was avoiding me. I thought I might not see him till later tonight when he usually awoke to relieve himself and stretch his legs a bit. I sighed heavily and put my head on my paws. Disappointed in my own lack of performance at dinner, I thought this whole Alpha-thing seemed like just plain fantasy.

I got up and stalked off, no where in particular; though I walked slowly, careful for my unstable stomach. I saw the shepherd-lab near the center of the yard. He was chewing on one of the precious rawhides that the lab techs sometimes handed out after dinner. I gave him a wide berth and continued to walk the perimeter of the fence. I paused when I heard the familiar tones of the music toy from the other side of the concrete house. I listened and began to recognize the familiar style of work. Tongue lolling happily from my mouth, I walked over and was rewarded with the generous handsome bulk of the black lab sitting in front of the board. He was already scooted over, as if he'd been expecting I'd show up.

I pushed my way past the music appreciators and sat down beside him. For a time, I lost myself in the music.

The last chime of a melody that we had created simultaneously bled away and we both stared at the bright colors of the plastic toy for a while afterwards. The lab then nudged me with his thick, fatty shoulder. "Feeling better?"

To my surprise, I was actually. My stomach ache was gone, and so was the ape. I felt no sensation at all from my stomach actually. It was a liberating feeling, no heaviness or emptiness, nothing but... me. I emoted assent with my floppy ears. But I couldn't keep from voicing my lingering feelings regarding how much less I'd been able to eat. "Why?" I ended up asking for the second time that day.

The lab reached down with some effort given his thickened torso and nose the side of my exposed tummy. "Because your stomach was still half full from food this morning." He told me in elegant form with his ears, his tail and his eyes.

My eyes widened slightly. The black lab sure did seem to know a lot about the nuances of eating... then again he did a lot of it himself, so it might not be such a big surprise after all. I let my ears fall a little though and asked, "Then how can I learn to eat more, like you and the Alpha?"

The big lab rose stiffly back into a sitting position and this time just touched my lightly on the side with the back of a forepaw. "Just keep stretching it out and sleep after meals so you won't get sick." He said, and I understood he meant my stomach. "You'll learn." He said with a gleam in his eye.

And I did learn, faster than even the lab expected apparently. I just kept stretching my stomach at every meal and I slept beside the black lab for both security and comfort after each feeding. My body seemed to adapt to my new demands with a flourish and I kept on pushing myself. I increased my intake from two and a half bowls to three and then three and a third, morning and evening. My stomach was actually never fully empty, but I kept packing it down, making room where there hadn't been any before. And the lab showed me something else to do to keep stretching out my stomach and increasing my volume.

Midday and at midnight, the lab told me that I could fill my belly with water, until I got that tight, bloated feeling again. He told me not to do it too late after meals or else I would have less room for kibble. I took this exercise to heart, and drank till I was bursting not once, but twice after each feeding. But I always gave myself several hours before each new meal so I'd have time to eliminate the extra water. It was a tiring, painful, but involving routine. My canine self craved structure at its heart, felt restless, in fact when I wasn't told what to do. So having this regiment was actually an improvement in a lot of ways over the endless idleness that, granted, some dogs prefer.

My testicles dropped during this rigorous training period, first one and then the other two days later. It was something of a relief, considering how infantile my empty sac appeared when I was as big if not bigger than most of the other yearlings. By thirty-eight weeks of age, I was eating as much as the heaviest dogs in the yard without too much effort. But I kept pushing myself. I'd put on more than twice the amount of weight I'd gained during the two month previous to my new lifestyle as well, but it wasn't entirely flab as I'd expected. You see, I was still growing.

I was as tall as the black lab when I started my weight training, but I quickly grew taller. I had been bigger of frame than any of the other goldens in the yard, regardless of their age. By eight months, I was bigger than any of the labradors too. By nine and a half months, I was taller at the withers than any other dog in the yard. And despite the growth of my frame, my heavy feeding had also caused me to get proportionally fatter as well. My back and flanks widened and my shoulders thickened. My neck fluffed up with new flesh and began to sag at my throat. The shelf at my tail head got very thick and fat, growing over my long buried tail head and thickening in the direction of my tail. My haunches got so fat they rubbed together and fatter still till the skin was able to roll over itself as I waddled without rubbing; they got very thick and wobbly behind me, so that it seemed it would begin to sag behind each of my knees. I carried more of my weight in my forequarters, but the black lab told me that I was well proportioned and handsome anyways. For the longest time, my chest remained slightly deeper than my belly due to its own growth, but finally, they came to form a straight line when standing. My brisket grew to be very lush and I liked the way it bounced as I walked, I liked the weight of it there in front of my chest, almost like a pendant of my accomplishment. By nine an a half weeks, although I was portioned differently than him, I was as fat as the black lab and much taller and longer to boot.

Or... at least I was as fat as he had been when I started. In the time it'd taken me to reach this newfound level of obesity, the lab had grown as well, and not at all slowly. Astonishingly, he got to be as fat and then fatter than the shepherd-lab was when I'd fought him. He took pride in his obvious growth, sure, but he never showed it off, in fact, it seemed like he hardly noticed most of the time. He'd moved into a staggeringly high weight category, but it hardly seemed to impact his daily life. He still napped after meals alongside me and still contemplated the universe during his waking hours. As for myself, I preferred composing on the music toy or tug-of-war with my brother to fill the gaps of time I still had left after all of my weight training. He never had any problems getting about. Sure he was slower getting up and he probably couldn't chase a ball to save his life at this point, but those things just weren't part of his life. He had exactly what he needed to to get by and not feel restrained in any capacity; or at least, if he did feel restrained, he never showed or demonstrated it.

As for me, my mounting obesity came less easily. When I was training, it felt like I was battling uphill against my never ending and frankly freakish growth. I was a giant in the yard, even if my waistline wasn't the largest. The size did have one advantage, though, my stomach grew along with me, and faster even with my training. I could put away four bowls and then five by the time I was eight and a half months. At that time, I was taken away again. They measured me all over, this time without stupefying drugs. They took more blood and samples, even a biopsy of flesh from my side which pinched like a bad ant bite. The humans talked more and more loudly around me. I could sense their excitement and was glad of it. I impressed them. I thought they might actually take me with them this time, but instead I was carried back to the yard. The bigger of the male lab tech carried me because of my weight. I was deflated to be returned to the yard, but also felt a renewed vigor at my training diet. Something was clearly working and I didn't plan to quit. The next day, I got a special bowl. I was the only dog with a special bowl. It was shiny and new, like it'd never been used before, it was a magnificent shade of blue, but that wasn't the most important part. It was roughly twice the size of the old bowl. Each one of these was a double portion for me and it was such a relief to be able to get my food faster without having to wait for everyone else.

I got venomous looks from the shepherd-lab and his barely increased food intake, but he couldn't touch me. The other dogs were impressed as well and wanted to sniff my empty dish for the few moments it lingered on the ground before the humans took it away. I had protection, it wasn't a lot, but the humans' attentions were perhaps what kept him from attacking me again during those months of heavy feeding and growth. And more than all the food, I had to learn to adjust to my rapidly changing body as well. I was getting bigger and heavier at the same time. Coordination went out the door and I felt clumsy and stumbled often, sometimes over my own paws. It was all almost too much, too much change in the span of weeks.

My brother actually helped me the most in that regard. I was still firmly set on putting on as much weight as possible, but my brother was the one who usually got me up and about after my naps to stretch and move around. I was clumsy and slow, going on slower, and not at all a good playmate, I imagine, but my sibling stayed by my side. In return, I began to recognize his own growing mind. However, he seemed less interested in exploring the realms of abstract thought, even though it came to him now and then. Some of the dogs were like that, in fact a lot were. We had potential within ourselves, but it had to be awakened by need, and really couldn't be forced from the outside. I thought it explained a lot about why the black lab had taken to me as he had. But my brother, along with a lot of others, seemed happy being just plain dogs and I could hardly begrudge them for that choice.

I began to realize the value of my brother's own efforts in keeping me active a few weeks into my new regiment. It hit me that I could not be too much like the black lab or I wouldn't defeat the Alpha, no matter how large I got. I had to own my weight in a physical sense that the unstressed black lab didn't. The shepherd-lab owned his weight as if he were simply a creature built to that size, like a hippopotamus, or an elephant. I had to be the same. So I did my best to keep up with my brother and then later sought him out. I left the black lab to compose and philosophize silently on his own. Between eating, napping, drinking and exercising, I had little time to spare during my days. It was new, being busy, but I liked it and everyday, I felt a little closer to my goals.

However, it was clear that the shepherd-lab felt threatened by me. He went out of his way to interrupt my playtime with my brother, making me submit and roll over for him. He thought he could cow me, even if he couldn't touch me during meals. He bit me more than once at the base of my tail. Fortunately, that area was getting so fatty, I didn't mind so much; the stinging would go away after a few minutes, that was all. But more than that, I think he realized what I was up to because he was training as well. His food intake increased only slowly, but he didn't have a growing frame to combat against. His extra Calories went right into his stockpile of adipose and his skin grew tight over his expanding body. Like me, he kept active, however, he play fought constantly with his betas which unnerved me because nobody I was friends with knew much about real fighting. The Alpha and his betas while fighting sometimes became quite vicious and the shepherd-lab drew blood on his subsidiaries more than once. That, more than anything else made me apprehensive of the inevitable fight.

If the black lab grew regal in the fatty composition of his body, the shepherd-lab got to be stunning. He quickly got to be as fat as the collie before him had been and then grew larger still. His belly actually began to scrape his ankles, so low and massive it hung. His fat spread out widely over the ground where he lay, and when he stood, it was marvelous seeing so much tan fur drape so low and yet so wide. His rear got so fatty, his shelf expanded out along with his tail and he could lift and lower it as the fat pad slowly devoured the appendage. His chest was a barrel and his shoulders got ridiculously plump, the cellulite from them alone hung in blobby, fluid-filled sacs over his elbows. His neck was that of a beast. Uncounted rolls from the base up to his head flowed and shifted, reforming constantly as he moved his neck. He got a slight lisp to his bark from all the fat around his throat. It was so thick, when he turned his head down, he could bury his chin in it. The highest roll on the magnificent column actually folded a little over his pricked ears when he held his head a certain way. And for all that, he remained active and aggressive to his fellow canines. In short, he was pretty much the perfect Alpha male.

When I was thirty-six weeks old, I began to have nightmares about him. He seemed so perfect and so dominant and possessed with an Alpha's charisma. I dreamed that he would be impossible to beat, no matter how hard I tried to meet his level of obesity. I saw his flank hovering over me, swollen ten times the size in real life, moments before he crushed me under it. But the worst dreams weren't when I lost, they were when I actually won. I'd leave him defeated, only to meet the empty looks of despair of my fellow canines. He was handsome and fitting with the right disposition to rule a pack of dogs. How dare I take such a handsome leader from them? Who did I think I was to think I could replace him? A giant, a freak, instead of a proper king. Their mouths would open as one then and they would descend on me, ripping me to pieces and I'd awake with a gasp, shaking my head, wondering how I was going to continue.

Two weeks after the dreams started, I approached the black lab. The summer heat was finally beginning to die off, but the black lab was still in the shade near the middle of the yard where a tent had been erected to shade us and our water fountain. He complained about the heat even when I found it to be mild. I settled down near his huge bulk after I filled myself with water. I would need some time for the pressure in my belly to ease before going to romp with my brother, so now was a good time for talking.

I looked at the black lab's face. His cheeks had gotten much fleshier and developed into sagging jowls, his thick neck spilled forward under his jaw and sagged in thick sheets to where it piled on his brisket which sat between - and partially over - his paws like a small soccer ball. His yellow eyes were exactly the same though. With the months, our communication was getting even better and I was able to relate to him not only the contents of my dreams, but also my concerns about what they meant.

"I mean..." I hesitated and tried to scratch my ear, but realized belatedly, that my paw wouldn't quite reach anymore given the thickness of both my gut and my haunches. "Is he a good Alpha?"

There, I'd said it. He was spiteful and mean to me certainly, but did I have a right to displace someone who seemed like a good ruler and symbol of authority to everyone else? The black lab made a low humming in his thick neck. He told me to scratch at the base of his neck while he was thinking and I obliged him, more aware now than ever of the annoyances a decreased range of motion brought. Finally, he seemed to find his answer. "He is a good Alpha... for dogs."

That confused me naturally. "But we are dogs." I replied, but he just continued to stare at me with those thoughtful yellow eyes. He took a couple deep breaths that expanded the huge mass of black furred dog beside me.

"Are we?" he asked.

I wanted to shout at him that clearly we were dogs, but he'd rubbed off on me too much and I knew that he wanted me to think about the answer more deeply. It scared me a little when I realized what exactly he was talking about. He saw the idea realize on my face and patiently waited for me to put it into words. "Is it... abnormal to... to think as we do?"

The lab answered me plainly for once. "I don't know, not for sure." When he turned his head, the fat thickened against the side of his face, even partially closing the eye nearest me. "But there are dogs and then there are us. Not many of the others here behave like us. We're different."

I tried to think carefully, but we were suddenly talking about things I'd always taken for granted; like the fact that I was a dog. "The Alpha thinks. He's smart."

"I know he is." Answered the lab and he heaved a sigh and I was afraid he'd give up on trying to help me understand something that he'd obviously been contemplating for a long time. "But he uses his smarts differently, like a dog would."

I shook my head. "I don't understand, aren't we dogs??" I asked again more emphatically.

"I don't know..." I pained me to see the black lab in doubt. "We are, but we aren't. We're dogs, but there's something... more..." He coughed and cleared his throat, then shifted his weight so that he was lying on his side. When he settled, his smooth belly was inadvertently touching my flank. There was some passion in his voice and his gestures when he next spoke to me. It was as if he were trying to tell me about something that had bothered him for the longest time. "Don't you feel it? The two halves, dog and not-dog. In your head? In your mind??"

It sounded crazy, I wanted it to sound crazy. But I was afraid that I knew what he was talking about, deathly afraid because it made me think I was crazy too. "No," I lied. "I still don't understand." I hurt me to say it to his face. It hurt me even more to see him deflate in defeat and the realization that he was alone with his strange thoughts. But it didn't hurt as much as it would have to have to face the insanity of what he was talking about. "Please..." I said quietly instead, "Can we talk about the Alpha? What did you mean before when you said he was good for dogs?"

The black lab looked away for a long while, reorganizing the train of his thoughts. There was no rushing him. There was no rushing the black lab to anything. But eventually he did speak. "I was going to get to that. I'd hoped you..." Then he closed his eyes and exhaled. He started again, "You and I, and maybe a couple of the others, we're different. More than dogs. We... feel more." He touched his paw to the thick neck above his brisket, indicating his heart. "We care and we don't forget so easily. Dogs don't mind a strong, pushy leader, they don't mind getting bitten once in a while. They want it even. Not us. We're different. So a good Alpha for them is not a good Alpha for us. Understand?"

I thought that I did and I thought that it confirmed a lot of what I'd secretly suspected in my heart. Especially when the differences between me and my brother were so obvious. But there was a lingering doubt. "But if he is still a good Alpha to most of the dogs here, does that make me wrong to replace him?"

This question actually made the black lab grin, folds crinkled at the sides of his face as he drew his lips back. "You can be a good Alpha to everyone." He said smoothly and convincingly, "Because you are dog and more. You can give everyone what they need."

I smiled and rested my head against the welcoming softness of the lab's neck. I could hear his breathing rasp a little as he breathed through the thickened walls of his neck. Right then, his fatness seemed more inviting and comforting than noble and strong and I liked it. At least until the lab spoke again.

"I think the people might take me soon. So you'll have to be strong."

My head snapped back as if I'd been bitten. "What?!" I gasped and felt like barking that he was wrong, that he wasn't going anywhere. "Why would you say that?" I asked heatedly.

He shrugged his rounded, bloated shoulders. "Look at how fat I am. I don't remember anyone being this big when I first came to the yard. I'm surprised they haven't taken me yet, actually."

I couldn't argue with his words, the average weight of the heaviest dogs in the yard had only increased all year. The collie had been taken, true, but only two or three of the largest canines since then. More of the thinner dogs have been taken, actually. The ones who seemed to stop putting on weight after a certain point or weren't interested in eating as much as the rest of us. In fact, nearly a third of our total number now were as heavy or heavier than the lab had been about three months ago. It was as if the humans were waiting for something.

But I couldn't imagine living in the yard without the black lab. But how could I tell him he was wrong? He was the third fattest canine here, behind the shepherd-lab and one of his betas who equaled his physique. "Why?" I asked him, a throaty whine in my voice, "Why do you think they are going to take you? The Alpha is so much fatter than you! They should take him!"

The black lab snorted. "They aren't going to take him, not yet anyways."

I gaped at him, "You can't possibly know that!"

He looked at me sidelong and gave me a conspiratorial look. I thought that he was going to refuse to answer me because I'd rebuffed him just now. As punishment. But he closed his eyes again and spoke. "I overheard them talk about him."

This time, I did gasp. "You can understand the humans?!" How much did I not know about the black lab? Foolish puppy indeed.

He wiggled his snout a little, "Some... a little. Enough to understand they were comparing him to me, last time they checked me."

It was as if my friend were divulging access to divine providence. How could he have kept this secret from me? How could he bear living with the knowledge all alone? To understand the humans' speech! This was an even greater miracle than the squirrel had been. "What did they say?" I asked in new awe of the tubby labrador next to me.

"Many things..." he said cryptically, "Most of which I don't understand. But I know why they are not going to take the Alpha. There's something wrong with his blood."

"His blood?" I asked, thinking that I've never seen him bleed overly much or really at all. How could there be a problem?

"Yeah..." The lab was starting to look a little weary for this whole discussion now. "They don't want him unless he's completely healthy and so they are waiting to see if he gets better in time."

I visualized the shepherd-lab, in all his ferocity and overwhelming bulk. It was hard to imagine him defective in the slightest way. But I had no reason to doubt my friend even if what he said made little sense to me. I didn't understand enough to ask more about the Alpha and whatever might be wrong with his blood. So instead, I asked timidly, "...And me?"

The lab's eyes brightened and then he reached over and gave my face a good lick like he hadn't in a long while. "You're special." He told me, and I couldn't get anything more out of him.