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For the betterment of my social and psychological wellbeing, the four dogs of the litter, including myself, were moved to a large communal kennel away from where the brooding bitches were housed individually. There, all the other male pups were housed, ranging from ten weeks to eighteen months. I would not see another bitch until I proceeded to the next phase for they entered my program in a roundabout way, and only after they'd been rejected for breeding, for one reason or another.

The kennel was actually a large fenced pen entirely filled with grass covered with yellow urine burns like acne. The only indoor component was a concrete box-like shelter filled with heaters where us pups could huddle during foul weather and the long winter nights. By this time, it was hardly the first time that I'd been out of doors. By using a small portion of my latent intellectual powers, however, I became ecstatic with the deduction that I would now be living outside. Outside, that place that had been only as a treat to me, as a lollypop is to a small child, and it was to be mine permanently!

However, it was also my first time experiencing other dogs who were not my brothers or sisters or my mother. I was young and full of bravado, however and yet at the same time keenly aware of how small and young I was compared to a lot of the other dogs here. My human, one whose hands reeked of the coffee he ingested religiously, passed through the tall gate and lowered us four down to the grass. It crunched a little under my pink pads. It was the end of winter and for that I suppose I must consider myself fortunate as my life would have been very different had I been whelped later in the year.

The moment we were set down on the ground, me and my brother scampered off together, leaving my two slightly heavier brothers behind where they sat uncertain at the feet of the male lab coat. If I ever once had an inkling that the happenings at the lab in St Louis were out of the ordinary, it was when my brother and I encountered our first older dog there in the pen for the first time.

I had never seen a Labrador Retriever before. But even if I had, I doubt I would have attributed this quality to the creature I met. He was one of the older pups, a yearling at least and he was reclining out in the sun, stretched out to his full. Yet his appearance was slightly odd to me, though I must admit I had little to no basis for my intuition; even the distended and baggy shape of my lactating mother was hardly anything to go on for what would constitute "normal" outside of the laboratory world. We approached him from the rear, so I did not quite see it at first. Then we scampered around, I with the intention of jumping on his chest, my brother evidently going for the face. I hesitated, however when the new dog's belly came around into view.

Simply put, the dog was very, very fat. The turgid beast's abdomen rose and fell with long easy breaths. The prodigious gut filled all the space that should have been empty under the ribcage and a little more, making for straight, cylindrical lines from shoulder to hip and from chest nearly all the way down to where I could his tiny pink sheath, stretched tight against the girth of his belly until just a nodule of the tip was left to identify his gender. The dog's thickness swelled overhead in a round black hill. He was roundest at the midpoint of his ribs, again making a roughly cylindrical shape from his body. The soft swell of his gut and copious chest fat sagged below the firmer oval of what I thought of as the "main body."

The obese dog didn't pay us the slightest bit of attention as we rounded on his soft, vulnerable underside. My brother went on heedlessly to tug on the older pup's jowls and jump on his nose. I had stopped in my tracks, however, feeling a vapid uneasiness about the state of this dog. I had not yet formed the facilities to wonder "Why?" Not yet, but a yawning emptiness inside my mind that was the precursor was there. I simply had no way to express the vague sense of foreboding and wrongness I felt at that instant. However, looking back I am fairly certain now of the cause of my initial stress upon seeing the state of the lab. He was hardly alone in my new environment, and not even the fattest one there in the pen. The black lab represented what I would later call "above average." And I am sure that it was the collision of what I would learn to be normal and what I had still instinctively felt ought to be normal was the source of my distress.

The huge dog, though larger than any animal I'd ever seen before including mother, was still young and spry. After a few moments of gaping helplessly at my brother as he terrorized his face, he rolled over slowly to get to his feet. Nearly being crushed by a wall of black fur was enough to stir me from my lapse. I dodged and leaped retaliation on the dog's heels and took advantage of jumping up and nibbling on his low slung, pink tummy that I could reach if I stood up on my tip toes. Although slow already by most standards, the large black lab was still energetic enough to teach both of us proper respect for his age and propriety. Deftly, he stepped on my back with a heavy paw, flattening me to the turf. As for my brother, he darted out with his mouth and took his whole torso in the soft grip of his retriever's mouth. I would later ruminate that this was not the first time that the Black Lab had thus defended himself while simultaneously offering much needed instruction to new members of the pack inside the fence. That black lab was, I suppose, my first friend. It would seem that an age would pass before I even learned his name.

Of course, back then, I didn't even know that I had a name, nor had much of a conception of what a name was. I did recognize a series of human syllables that humans tended to repeat more frequently around me, but the most amount of meaning I could attribute to the pattern of sounds was "come." Nothing more. I had no interest in artificial labels. Smells were as good as names to me then. And within a week, I had learned the particular bouquet of each and every other puppy in the large pen, something that for me was and still is far easier to commit to memory than any name has ever been.

That first night though was hard. The novelty of the black lab soon wore off and when I was given my comeuppance by the tall, heavy dog, I fled and found the human who had brought me here gone and my two other brothers had gone off their separate ways. I wandered off for a time too. I walked along the perimeter of the fence, instinctively looking for a way out; of course there was none, but that didn't bother me very much. I sought out and quickly found my brother with whom I'd attacked the mighty black lab. I sought some small comfort in his presence. As for my remaining two siblings, they had always been more aloof towards me and they would become only as familiar to me as the other dogs in the pen with time. But honestly, one brother was enough and I had no want for more. Save of course, for the presence of mother. I howled that night, in longing for her and refused to sleep for the longest time. My brother joined with me, and I think he cried longer, even after I finally passed out in exhaustion.

The next morning, I was weary and feeling ill, more from mental stress than anything physical. The lack of mother was like a wound in my chest and I'd cried out in anguish until my throat hurt too much to cry anymore. But there was still something that could make the hurting go away. That thing I would eventually call breakfast.

I mentioned before that I noticed all of the dogs in the pen were oversized and I did, but it did not hit me as a real thought until that morning when I saw them assemble for the morning feeding. You have to understand that I had no conception was what being fat or overweight was; other than I felt a bit strange seeing it for the first time. I had no idea that I myself was already nearly 20% heavier than I ought to have been for my age. If I possessed some sort of genetic blueprint that told me that how the dogs here appeared was at all different from how all dogs in the world appeared, it was my only basis for judgement. Still, it struck a chord, watching the other puppies liven up at the sound of approaching footsteps in a way that they never did for anything else.

A fervor spread among us. The youngest of us were up first, including myself, but the older puppies were not far behind. I was thinking not only of food, however, I was longing for human attention already, human hands to hold me far above the stained grass on which I tread and clutch my soft body tightly and securely. Right then, it was a substitute for mother, but by the end of the week, I would be longing for the human touch in and of itself. In a month, I would think little of mother at all.

Two men and a woman were coming around the corner to us. The black lab began to bay, others joined him, and the less heavy of us reared up on the gate and surrounding chain link fence. Excitement and hunger that belied most of their heavy, quivering forms brightened their eyes and mine to a lesser degree as well. I'd soon learn though. One man shouted us down with his powerful, human voice and all of the dogs above the age of four months heeded his command. Us tiny, wobbling puppies still crowded the gate, however and it was to our detriment when the man slowly but inexorably pushed it forward and the low bar of metal at the bottom of the gate bowled us over like a stiff wind. I jumped away after the first contact. My brother next to me was rolled over completely before he moved to a safe distance. That took some of the fight out of us, but by then, I could smell the food.

The humans were loaded down with the things they carried including rough, well worn plastic bowls of colors ranging from blue, yellow, the grey I saw instead of "green" and the black I saw instead of "red." They also carried their clipboards and a battery operated scale as well. The man carried two buckets, one empty and the other very heavy and full and odiferous with the blissful smell of dog food. The Hunger filled my being and for a time, it was like I was not myself anymore, or rather like and not like. I just knew that I wanted that food at that moment like nothing I've ever wanted before or since. That was the feeling of it.

Me, my siblings and the other young puppies crowded around the man's feet, jumping on his shoes. He shushed us and spoke in an easy tone. It may have been something like "Down, pups, down." Though I had no understanding of course. He nudged us away with his boots, and naturally we rushed right back in. The woman there laughed, and far over my head the man grinned, but he pushed us away more firmly. For my part, I was reminded of the bar just now and didn't want to be pushed anymore by the man's big boots. I scooted away where I saw now that the older dogs, for whom this was only routine, were now waiting a respectful distance away. I joined them and sat my plump butt down on the grass. I watched my companion brother and my two chubbier ones go at the man's boots along with five other young pups. After a few moments, the other man stepped in to haul two rowdy ones away, the woman stepped in to do likewise. The man with the food seemed reluctant to step away from the container and decided finally to assert his dominance, strongly pushing away the remaining pups with his shoe. My brother tumbled head over heels, saw me and came over to sit by me. No more attacks were made on the man with the food.

I watched the ritual with some degree of wonder for the first time. As a puppy, I was used to doing as I pleased most of the time; they tell me that human younglings are much the same way. Now, I observed the older puppies reined in and following human direction. The humans would make a sound and the dogs would respond. Their power and majesty at the time was awe-inspiring, both terrible and beautiful. I felt the doggish desire to please even more greatly then.

Gently, the two free humans separated the youngest from the oldest pups. The oldest of us ate first. This was training, but it was difficult, far more difficult than learning to come when a human called. For me, my litter mates and the five other young pups, the woman corralled us in with her waving arms. I wanted desperately to get around her, as did the others, but here hands met my nose seemingly at every turn. Eventually, I gave up and just sat in the grass and whined complaint, watching the feeding going on a distance away from me as the hunger burned in my gut and my brain like a slow match.

A short distance away, the man with the food carefully scooped and measured food into the worn plastic bowls; Oh, how greasy and delicious those crunchy brown bits smelled! He made scratching sounds on his clipboard for each bowl and would frequently mutter something under his breath which sometimes got a response from one of the other humans. Four dogs got fed at a time, one bowl for each available human hand. Always, the quietest and stillest of the older pups got their meals first. I had no conception of how they did it. Their eyes were bright and tracked every motion of their intended bowls and those with heavier jowls salivated generously; some whined and fidgeted as well, but it was clear from the treatment what was expected.

When the first bowl hit the ground, my rear flew from the ground as I dashed forward, intent on begging and stealing if I could. A palm bumped firmly against my nose and pushed me back and I got a cuff on the head for my trouble. "Bad puppy." said the woman firmly. I'd learned the meaning of "Bad" by this time as well so again I sat and keened softly like someone was stabbing me.

The lucky dog whose bowl I would have stolen from if I'd been able was indeed the fattest one there. He was another mix breed, like nearly every dog at the lab. I recall that he seemed to favor some sort of collie, but it was a little hard to tell under all his flab.

The collie mix sat very still before the humans, hardly daring to wag his bushy black and white tail. But I could see the Hunger in his eyes and in the tenseness of his blocky round shoulders. Pink gut swollen round under young stretchy skin, it rested firmly on the ground, quivering slightly as the food approached. I whined again as I watched him begin to eat.

The fattest dog here dropped all pretense the moment the food was on the ground. He dropped his head, bunching rolls at his cheeks because of thickness of his neck, and began to wolf down the kibble. It was puppy food and he didn't bother to chew, rather just gulping down mouthfuls thick with saliva. He was done before the humans were even finished measuring out the next bowl. But the speed with which the hugely obese puppy ate was nothing to me, all I cared about was getting a bowl to myself for the Hunger was a raging ape on my back and could not be ignored. I struggled with it to the point where watching others eat almost caused me physical pain. Still I was restrained by the female human and her quick darting hands. Her voice tried to calm me, but I could barely listen.

The older dogs for the most part behaved themselves, but the younger ones sometimes had to be stopped from fighting. As punishment, usually food was taken away and remeasured before being given to someone else. Although we were all eventually fed as much as we wanted to eat, even a momentary lapse in the food order was punishment enough. And the order in which the food was distributed came to matter a lot in my life.

The youngest ones, myself included were fed last as the others watched impatiently. We were corrected constantly for sniffing outside our bowls, even glancing at one another; granted a bad glance would indeed start a fight, so tightly we were wound. When that old beaten-up plastic bowl was put in front of me, it was as if I'd been on fire and finally doused with water. Utter relief, and finding oblivion in the simple act of eating poured the little stress I'd accumulated so far right out of my little body. My tongue was soon searching the bottom of the rough plastic for spare morsels, and to no avail. I tipped the bowl over and it was taken from me. I might have cared, but it was meaningless as soon as it was empty.

I watched as the humans were clearly not done. They refilled the bowls again, scratched their papers again, just as soon as us puppies had finished our bowls. The fattest collie sat up again and began to pant eagerly. He was given another full bowl of food, which he finished off almost as fast as the first. This despite the fact that the bowls were not at all small. The dog next to him was passed over because he'd stood up, in favor of a patchwork shepherdy dog down the line, and the black labrador as well. And so it went, all over again. The dogs were offered seconds. One or two turned their noses away after a few bites. A couple more got up and wandered off aimlessly after nearly finishing, but they were the minority. For myself, I ate until my stomach was near to bursting, but I was stuffed after my first full bowl and took only a few cursory bites of the second and it was taken away and weighed to see how much I'd eaten. For most of the dogs, it took until the third bowl to sate their enormous appetites. The collie was the one of only three to take a fourth.

I noticed one of the men step away as most of the dogs were mussily wandering off to roll in the grass or just lay in the sun. He went to the collie with his bent head, splayed legs and heaving belly. He patted the dog's broad back and rubbed the loose fur. He said something complementary to the female of the group, now standing idly over drowsing puppies. She pointed at the collie and nodded agreement. Both seemed content in watching the collie's reckless gorge. But near the end of the fourth bowl, even he was defeated and he moved a few steps to collapse down, his distended belly still heaving and his red tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. To me, he looked fabulously happy, although he was also clearly in pain and perhaps even had a mite of trouble breathing properly.

After my first feeding, I laid down for a nap and didn't move much for the rest of the day. I was tired and overstimulated. I just wanted to hang around and feel my brother beside me as I drowsed in the sun, near, but not too near the black lab. If I thought of anything, it was contentment at the new way of feeding. It was exciting and it was great being able to eat all I wanted. For that reason alone, I came to love the large grassy pen outside the main research building for the scene would replay itself in its entirety later that evening and twice a day from that point forward.