“Chunky” was the vet’s word. Health otherwise perfect, best health ever, as Carll’s Nameless One might exult. But chunky?

                  Heretofore I’ve kind of liked the vet. The jabs, I know, but surely, like those pills Carll daily lodges mid-esophagus so I don’t disgorge them, these annoyances must serve some benevolent purpose, yes? While consistently condescended to and occasionally abandoned – to “guard the house,” Carll claims in his culpable cuddle-voice – for hours! – and invariably denied additional fodder notwithstanding the reasonableness of my requests – I am not physically abused. About psychological harm I have no idea – do dogs have psyches? – or is that yet one more invented human complication? Physically, no complaints – plus plenty of petting as befits my status. But chunky?

                  Even Carll cringed. Or perhaps I should say Carll particularly cringed, for he is responsible for both my nutrition and exertion. Jane was with us, at my annual checkup, and I would say she winced at this assessment, more than cringed, flashing toward Carll a glance that makes opprobrious sound meek. How could he have permitted our beloved Henry to chunk, if that’s a verb? How would Carll like if his doc declared him chunky? (He has and he doesn’t.)

                  Far be it for me to demur (whenever anybody commences a sentence with that formula “far be it for me,” duck), my weight, again as the Nameless One would proclaim, is perfect, best weight ever, the cat’s meow for a cockapoo, not only in the ballpark but on the nose. How do I know this? Because, as Alexander Pope put it (or as I would have if he hadn’t), “Whatever is is right.” Does God make mistakes? It is my nature to eat – extra if it’s available – to fortify myself against prospective want. What if Carll lost me in the forest? I was not bred to secure my repasts, hard as I try. Squirrels aren’t so easy to catch – you try – and frogs and beetles, within my grasp, aren’t that tasty. Set me in the wild and I’d be mangy as a jackal and dangerous to babies, whose nutritional value and availability would grow more notable as my stomach shrank and shrieked.

                  That my shape is “chunky,” I likewise vehemently dispute. Carll tells, when he was a tyke, knee high to a grasshopper, his mother dressed him from the “Chubby” department of a well-known Manhattan clothing store, long since deservedly extinct. He’s never gotten over it. Could be that’s what turned him scribbler. There must be a reason.

                  Thanks to that vet, whom I no longer like, I’ve been sentenced to half rations: scantier meals, morning and evening, fewer treats (Stella and Chewy’s Beef Hearts, if you were contemplating a spiff). As a consequence, I must beg more, more insistently, like a Manhattan indigent who sleeps in cardboard. That “chunky” clanks wearily as a convict’s chains!

                  More than a complaint, consider this a cri de coeur for more Christian consideration. Chunky? No! Charming! Muscular! Virile (only not)! The canine equivalent of a man’s man. Brad Pitt would play me in the movie if he were a dog.