OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS

One day I arrived at the clinic just in time to witness two technicians trying to get a 40-pound dachshund to throw up.

“Boy that’s the biggest, fattest dachshund I’ve ever seen,” I observed.






“Well he’s even fatter than usual after eating a turkey leg, “ said Will, one of the technicians. Soon, the hydrogen peroxide mixture was doing its job and the dog was heaving miserably into a bucket

“How did the dog get to the turkey?” I asked. “I mean it’s a big dachshund but it still has those short little legs.”

“Oh, at about two in the morning the dog snatched the turkey off the coffee table,” Melanie mentioned casually

“Why was the dog prowling around the house in the middle of the night, and besides, who leaves a turkey out all night on a coffee table?” I asked, my housekeeping sensibilities offended.

Mel just shrugged.

About an hour later I noticed there was still a dachshund sitting on the exam table, but this one looked considerably smaller.

“Is that the same dog I saw before that ate the turkey?” I asked. “He looks so little now. He must have thrown up the whole bird.”

Will just shook his head and smiled. “This dog ate turkey all right,. But it’s the other dog’s sister. They both stuffed themselves but the bigger dog seems to have gotten the lion’s share.”

During my next visit to the clinic, I noticed a tiny black and brown dog the size of a Chihuahua. The poor dog, which must have weighed all of three pounds, was standing on the exam table shivering and shaking.

“What’s wrong with this little guy?” I asked.

“It ate a ham” one of the technicians said.

“That dog’s not even as big as a ham,” I observed. Then, remembering the coffee table turkey I added, “How could it have snatched a ham? Where was this ham? On the floor?”

“I don’t know,” Marc sounded exasperated. “Owners didn’t even realize the ham was gone. Besides, this is nothing new. Had a beagle in here that ate a whole ham as well.”



“Why are there so many untended hams and turkeys around?” I wondered aloud as the small dog started vomiting. The clinic was turning into a support group for bulemics.

“You know,” I mentioned to Marc, “it seems they should change that expression, ‘eats like a pig’ to ‘eats like a dog.’”

“Nah,” Marc disagreed, “none of those dogs have anything on Hambone the pig.”

“What pig is that?”

“Oh some people came in with a pet pig that ate everything in their refrigerator, including the plastic the food was wrapped in.”

“How did it get to all the food?”

“Pigs are real smart. It learned how to open the refrigerator door with its snout and one day when the people were gone, it sneaked into the kitchen and just helped itself. Ate everything in sight. That was one sick pig. If they’re gonna change any expression they should change ‘sick as a dog’ ‘to sick as a pig.’ ”




“What did the people do?” I still couldn’t get over allowing swine to wander unsupervised throughout a house.

“Well, they had to put a lock on the refrigerator,” Marc recalled. “But even that was a hassle. First they tried a padlock but they kept misplacing the key. Then they used a combination lock but they kept forgetting the combination.”

I was amazed at all the trouble these people went through to guard their food. “Why didn’t they just post the combination on the refrigerator? I mean, it’s not like the pig could read.”

“You never know,” Marc said seriously.

“Better yet,” I suggested, “why couldn’t they just relegate the pig to a pigpen in the yard?”

“Hey, it was their beloved pet,” Marc said indignantly, as if such a suggestion reeked of animal cruelty.