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He was right, of course. Just as he'd been right about everything. I just wished that he hadn't been this one time. It took just over a week for the black lab's premonition to come true.

It was about half an hour after breakfast and I was lying against the solid mass of labrador behind me. His breathing was sharp and ragged. He was dreaming and I myself was just falling asleep, paying no mind to the side-splitting pain of my overfull stomach that had taken just over three of my new big bowls to fill. My breathing was rapid and shallow, so full was my stomach, but I had gotten used to the sensation. An hour's nap or so would do me well and then I could run around for a bit with my brother before I had to quaff water to fill my expanding stomach walls again.

I remember luxuriating in the warmth from the lab's body and in how soft it was all over. I realize now how very much I wanted to emulate him in my youth. He who seemed diametrically opposed to the shepherd-lab who tormented me and also was the only person who seemed to keep him at bay when I was with him. We were back to back, and I could feel his wider girth standing over my own. I was longer than him now and taller when standing, but he had a mass and a sheer width to him that I hadn't yet attained. His back flesh was deep, layered over itself many times so it no longer exactly mirrored the actual shape of the body underneath. The loose skin allowed for a large bulge near the ground where gravity caused the fat to accumulate when he lay on his side. This was, in fact, what I was resting my head on as I drowsed. The sheer mass of him at my back was comforting and solid. I guess that was why it was such a shock to me when they took him.

I'd been paranoid of that moment ever since he told me of his suspicions. I outright refused to believe he was right, but my ears perked at every unusual sound, ever searching for any indication out of the ordinary. Naturally, I heard them coming. I lifted my head at the sound of footsteps coming around the corner when they should not have been. My eyes widened in alarm and I bolted upright and ran to the fence as fast as I could with my new weight jiggling around me. Two of the lab techs were there in the party, and three other older humans. Two of the faces were familiar to me. My heart sank despite the fact that I had no proof of who they were here for. I just knew they were here for him.

The enormous black lab was only just staggering to his heavy paws when I dashed back to him. His face was calm, serene almost, and in complete contrast to my stressed panic. I jabbered to him. "Go hide in the house!" I remember saying. "I'll dig a hole... I'll do something!"

He just shook his head and stilled me when he laid his neck against mine. I could feel his heavier and lower slung brisket press against my own. His eyes glowed with an acceptance that I couldn't comprehend. "This is how it's supposed to be." He shrugged. "There's no resisting it."

"No!" I barked. I whined and I turned in a circle. I couldn't imagine life without my friend, I couldn't! And I wept, leaning against his huge bulk. I wept for his loss, and humiliatingly he had to comfort me. Only later would I realize how selfish I'd been. The gate clanged and the process was swift. With a strength I didn't know he had, he pushed past me and walked willingly towards the scientists. He sat his heavy rump on the ground as I watched from a distance. Crazy thoughts flew through my mind, like attacking the scientists and making a run for it out the gate. But I was only pointing, I stood stock still as the man kneeled down and felt the best he could through the black lab's blubber. He felt his neck and the glands at his armpits, but only cursorily, as if there wasn't much information to be gleaned that way at this point. He finished with a mild pat on the head and gesture to one of his compatriots. He took that familiar loop from his pocket and put it around the black lab's head, he pulled it and it became tight and the black lab got stately back up to his feet. They just walked out of the gate then, the humans slowing to move at a comfortable pace for the morbidly obese labrador. They walked around the corner of the building and out of sight.

For days, I held onto a feverish hope that they were only checking him, that they'd return him as they always did after a check-up or a physical. But they didn't and he didn't come back.

The hardest part about afterwards was just continuing. Sometimes the realization that the lab was gone would just hit me and I'd feel like collapsing to the ground to weep. It was as if someone had swept the solid ground from under my paws and all that was left was a shaky foundation of sand and silt which threatened to draw me under at any moment. I didn't care about being Alpha anymore. I didn't care about new toys, or food, or making music or any of the things that had filled my life prior to this. I thought that some part of me just wanted to lay down and die. A larger part of me wanted the humans to take me where the black lab was now, but that was equally unlikely.

The structure I'd built into my life at the black lab's suggestion was what saved me. The meals came just the same and at the same times of the day. I ate because the ape on my back commanded me to, even if the food was tasteless. I slept afterwards too, because I was used to it and because it did, in fact, help the digestion. My brother sensed my low spirits and forced me to play with him. He would bite my ears and make a pest of himself otherwise. And I talked to him because I had no one left to talk to.

He was not a conversationalist, however, not nearly so good at communicating as me and the lab had gotten towards the end. We spoke about simple things, dog things. And in my mind, the difference between "dog" and "not-dog" became all the more clear. I grieved the fact that I didn't open up to him, that I was afraid to think about myself as not wholly dog, or worse, perhaps even a grafted-together, "not-dog." I was even more afraid to explore those dangerous waters without his guidance. So I turned it off, refused to think about it. I turned off a lot of other things as well, in the end. My brother taught me that happiness could be found in ignorance and in the end, it was just plain easier than having to cope for real.

So I let go of most of the "not-dog" parts of my mind, storing them away in a place where I could get at them when I needed them again. It was far better than crippling depression and loneliness. It might sound drastic, or as if I was sacrificing my mind, but it wasn't really. I was me, and I was a dog. I liked the ball and I liked chewing things and I liked playing tug of war with my brother with a good, worn-in rope. They were part of me, the black lab had just shown me that there were other parts of me as well. But without him around, these things seemed to have less meaning. I honestly don't know how he did it for so long without anyone to share with.

Being a dog again meant letting go of the past and the future. I think of it as tuning an old fashioned radio. I was narrowing my bandwidth, which before was receiving multiple stations at once. I was clearing out the clutter and the distractions, until the clear, crystal present was what was left... for the most part. I still craved structure, and I gave it to myself by continuing to train. I let go of feeling hurt and lingering on wrongs dealt to me, letting the events simply wash over me like my brother did. We became closer, and although he was no replacement for the black lab, I found that I liked it better when he was around than not. He even complimented me on my size which continued to increase both upwards and outwards.

I hardly thought about the reasons why I was training anymore, to me it became simply how I lived. The routine required no additional thought and I liked it that way. I ate and ate, stuffing myself with food twice a day, water four times a day, increasing the volume I could hold at meals. My stature increased still more along with my flabbiness. There were no great danes among us, but I actually reached the point where I would have seen eye to eye with one if one had been present. I got even fatter as well, which was hardly surprising. I was downing four and a third big bowls at each feeding, the equivalent of almost nine bowls of food, eighteen a day. To put it in human terms, I was going through about 65 lb. of kibble a week!

The shepherd-lab couldn't hope to keep up, but he was forcing himself to eat at least five regular bowls each meal, even if it made him sick afterwards. He got even more obese, to the point where I thought that there must surely be a limit at which a dog simply has to stop gaining weight... wasn't there? But I was gaining weight even more rapidly than he, for all his honest effort.

I might have towered over him, but he did his best to make me feel small. He would intrude on me constantly and because I was still basically the omega of our pack, I'd have to roll over for him. It was easier now that I was being more of a dog, but he only got more suspicious at my lack of resistance. Then he began to take it out on my brother as well. Every time he managed to snag a toy that was not falling to bits, the Alpha went out of his way to claim it, even if he were on the opposite side of the yard. I felt his eyes on me all the time. Even when he was boxing and fighting with his betas to keep himself sharp, I noticed him glancing my way now and then. He seemed obsessed with me. It didn't help that given my gargantuan stature, I stuck out like a great, golden thumb.

But my dog brain had a certain way of working. I kept wondering to myself why I was letting such a smaller dog keep bossing me around. My old reasons were not so much forgotten as put out of mind, but my life in the present kept affording me new reasons to detest the Alpha male.

When we finally fought, it was purely reactionary. I hadn't put more thought into its placement than I did anything else these days. I just lashed out one day, refusing to roll over for the lardy, weighted down shepherd-lab. I swear he grinned when I did, he'd been looking for another excuse to send me to the vet. However, it ended up being him who was surprised.