A DOG'S WORLD

I am a Basset Hound. I come from a long line of Basset Hounds. I should have realized this ages ago, but it only came to me a few weeks back on the terrace at Inoz', where I was having an evening meet-up with two of the Muses.

It was me, the Chihuahua, and the Greyhound. They both had several hundred calories worth of beverages, I had my usual diet cola with a twist of lime. Then Chihuahua and I decided to order baked potatoes for dinner. I had mine the way I always do: no butter, no sour cream, just salsa. She ordered hers with everything but the kitchen sink on it, then told them "All that stuff she had you delete from hers, you can add to mine!" I try never to eat more than half of what's on my plate in restaurants, because portion sizes are so huge these days. They usually clean their plates. And yet, neither of them has an ounce of fat on their bones, while I...well, I like to think of myself as "voluptuous."

There is a good reason for this disparity. Both Chihuahua and Greyhound are the types that just exude energy, even when they are sitting still. They don't need to go to exercise classes because in any normal day of puttering around their houses, they probably burn more calories than I do in a week filled with line-dancing, yoga and Curves workouts. They hike, they ski, they go ride the zip-lines, and they get season's passes to waterparks. Me? Well, I get tired just listening to them talk about it all.

I wasted so much of my youth trying to figure out how to turn myself into a Greyhound, but finally I realized that no amount of dieting or exercise classes would ever do that. I am now, and forever will be, a Basset Hound. But that's OK. The world needs Basset Hounds, to balance out all the energy of the Chihuahuas and Greyhounds, don't you think?

P.S. Many thanks to www.dailypuppy.com for the above image.