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Part IV: Exercise Tolerance

Rascal was panting. The tent far over the pit provided shade, but the collie's tongue hung fully out of his mouth as he trotted around the perimeter of his living area. 'Exercise tolerance, my fat, furry butt!' Thought Rascal as he finally collapsed onto his bed, gasping for breath. It felt like every joint in his body was on fire as he wincingly let himself down onto his generous paunch. Heart racing, it was hard to see how this was good for him. Rascal never remembered deliberate exercise feeling like this before. The obese collie rolled slowly onto his wide, fatty back. With its width and the curvature of his spine, it was easy to balance. Legs dangling in the air, it was hard to believe that he'd only been on his feet for about three minutes and he'd even had the sense to warm up with stretches first; not that there was very much flexibility in his bloated torso, however. Rascal panted, his tummy heaving with his breaths and quaking at his sides like jelly. He could tell that this wasn't going to work. He already had too much joint damage, the weight was too much for them. "Rose!" he uttered like it was a curse and shook his limbs against the air. Even that small exertion was enough to get his heart going again, it had started to slow once he was off of his feet. That was when the idea struck him.

Still laying on his back, Rascal rotated his paws in the air, pumping them as if he were swimming. After a few minutes, he could sense the more familiar burn in his shoulders and haunches rather than the aching cramps of before. He was so out of shape, he realized, that the weight of his paws alone was enough to get them working hard. 'But at least this is technically exercise.' Thought Rascal as he breathed deeply and regularly. He could feel the difference immediately, the state of heightened energy from his limbs and his heart and lungs rather than the panicked stress and pain of before. Waggling his paws in the air was something that he could do and Rascal did it, as long as he could before taking a break and rolling back onto his belly. The burn felt good, healthy and Rascal welcomed the fatigue as he caught his breath. Later, rascal would fix stuffed animals and whatever else he could scavenge to his paws to increase the weight load as he worked. Outside at night, he would roll onto his back and lift rocks which he carefully balanced on his pads to help build muscle.

Between the exercise and the increasing lateness of his pregnancy, Rascal's appetite increased drastically, to the point where he was readily scarfing down all of the food he was given and more. From the internet, Rascal knew that he needed raw protein and vitamins and minerals more than ever in his late pregnancy. Luckily for him, the jerk's fridge was not too tall and he kept eggs, chicken breast and greens such as broccoli and spinach on the bottom shelves. The jerk also had a fondness for canned sardines and Rascal thought that these were great for the essential fatty acids and "Omega-3's"; after bashing the can against a rock a couple times that is. But above everything else that Rascal was doing to prepare for the inevitable coming of the fragile little pups in his belly, hung that single craving. Deep Fried Butter. That one night he stayed home in the trailer turned out to be unique. On the excuse for getting outside to move around a bit and find suitable rocks for exercises he couldn't otherwise do in the trailer or the exhibit, Rascal inevitably found himself drawn to the butter stand at some point during the night. It became a routine for both of them. A few minutes of pats and jiggling of his ample flesh, a few laughs at his expense, and a few belly rubs in return for that crowning glory of fried foods. The messiah of morsels, the king of candied confections, the steward of sweets, Deep Fried Butter was everything that Rascal wanted out of life. Having it once every night was a blessing, but every night that passed more solidly concreted the routine until the butter stand was Rascal's first destination every night and everything else could come later. Those last two weeks past as if in a blur...

The trailer bounced under Rascal as he lay once again licking his sore nipples. With his tongue, he could feel the extremely loose skin on his belly squish under it; a truly liquid layer between the skin surface and the firmer fat below. The milk had dropped three days ago, though it was hard to detect visually given how much his belly already sagged in the first place. His milk had dropped... that thought still sent Rascal for a loop. Sometimes Rascal thought that he was going to have gender identity problems for the rest of his life. Too bad no one took their dogs to therapy...

Despite the fact that it was exceedingly obvious to Rascal how very pregnant he was, his owner, the jerk had remained apparently oblivious all through their stay in Arkansas. Certainly he had done nothing to improve Rascal's diet and had left it utterly up to his morbidly obese canine to attempt to improve his "exercise tolerance" as recommended by the online articles and to secure additional vitamins and nutrients for his growing pups. The only thing that the jerk had been interested in was Rascal's obviously distended waistline. He'd been measured the day before about his wide, swollen flanks immediately after he'd gobbled up his third meal of the day and it was a surprise to both of them how much tape was used to get around Rascal's circumference. "For'two inches!" he'd said with clear astonishment and obvious pleasure as a greedy glow entered his beady eyes. Rascal knew that his stout human owner wore a size of 38 inches about the waist from the underwear he would leave scattered on the floor of the trailer. As for the collie himself, the news was staggering, he was so obese that his waist was longer around than his much larger human owner's! He'd known that his belly was very large, large enough for a freak show certainly, but still, forty-two inches. He should have been closer to eighteen inches at the most. The fact that he was heavily pregnant with multiple pups was the only mitigating factor and even so, Rascal knew they couldn't account for more than six or seven inches all told. He was still gratuitously obese and apparently, his attempts at exercise hadn't even slowed down the pace of his growth.

Suddenly, Rascal felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his midsection. Like a boot to his lower belly, the sudden cramp almost knocked the wind out of the older collie and Rascal shut his eyes tight against the pain. He'd been wondering when this was going to happen. In article after article describing human contractions - of course there was nothing written about the experience of canine contractions - it'd been described first as very bad menstrual cramps. Seeing as Rascal had never been in heat before, he was surprised at the heavy pain in his lower abdomen. The collie curled up, clenched against the sensation, but it didn't help. From the groin up to his stomach, deep inside the confines of his bloated torso, the muscles seized and cramped. The only thing that Rascal could compare it to was the pain he would feel right before a bad bout of diarrhea and even that wasn't very close because the feeling mingled deeply with his foreign female parts; most of which he hadn't even known were there until they started hurting. The very first contraction Rascal felt was mild and faded after less than a minute, but the bloated collie knew what was ahead of him as he lay on the vibrating trailer floor. There was no more time for preparations, Rascal was just going to have to make the best of this bad - and potentially lethal - situation.

Just as the internet had said, the contractions came few and far apart for the first several hours, but were slowly growing more frequent... and stronger. Rascal shamed himself for the first - but certainly not the last - time that day as he piddled in the corner of the little kitchen on the linoleum. Rascal rationalized that it would be easier cleaning up there, but really the first time he'd had an accident since potty training hit him hard. But what else could he do? It seemed as though his bladder had shrunk to the size of a pea and on the road, breaks were hours and hours in between. Rascal moved away from the smell and had almost made it to the carpet when another contraction started.

Rascal immediately started panting and his belly wobbled up and down as his abdominal muscles contracted and released gratuitously. It was everything he could do not to stumble to the floor right there. Even so, he put himself down without taking another step. His flanks heaved with his breath. The collie whined with the pain, the contractions were reallystarting to hurt now and Rascal thought that he had an inkling of what was meant by "exercise tolerance," muscles he didn't even know he had had were working everywhere up and down his abdomen from crotch to stomach. Although a surprising amount of work was going on in his belly, Rascal could also feel something definitely happening with the mysterious lady parts that were perpetually obscured from him over the horizon of his swollen belly. This contraction too passed and Rascal was left to recover on the floor of the trailer. The reprieve offered no lasting relief, however, as Rascal knew that sooner rather than later, he would be in even worse pain and that shortly perhaps ten lives would depend on how he would cope with something that he should never have had to deal with.

They arrived at the new fair grounds during the night. Rascal could tell because when the door was opened, he saw a wide parking lot filled with trailers, machinery and humans running about and working by lamp-light beyond. The collie knew this place to be called Mt. Pleasant and that it was in the state labeled "Texas" by the humans. It was supposed to be a much larger city than the one they had just left, though Rascal still saw many trees beyond the asphalt; the air drifting in the door now was much dryer than Arkansas and also smelled worse.

As the jerk entered, he brusquely scanned the kitchen area and Rascal cowered. Hours earlier during a pit stop, the jerk had seen the mess and cuffed the fattened collie hard on the head for it. He'd gotten no water during that pit stop and barely enough time to evacuate his bowels, the jerk taking away from his outside time in order to clean the floor. Rascal was only mildly parched however, he wasn't sure he could have taken water and certainly not food. His condition had been growing steadily worse hour by hour. The clock told him that he'd now been in labor for almost ten hours. Rascal could hardly do anything for the contractions now - in fact, the act of getting up now often triggered one - and he'd decided that the best course of action was to lay there and let nature take its course. The thought that dogs were supposed to have much easier births than humans and their oversized craniums kept him going. The hole which had been exchanged for Rascal's member was feeling very sore and moist. Rascal was breathing pretty heavily all the time now. His instincts were telling him that something was about to happen...

Having been apparently satisfied by the cleanliness of the kitchen caused by depriving his dog of water, the jerk climbed fully into the trailer and washed his oily hands in the basin. He ran a hand back along his mostly gone hair and scalp and came back to face Rascal. Rascal felt something going on in his lower stomach and he had the strong impulse not to be moved just now... but there was no stopping the jerk.

"Com'ere fattog. Time fer oo't'ge' busy. Alread'a day behin'" the human said as he stooped to pick up Rascal. The collie growled, Rascal really didn't want to be moved just now, but the jerk was used to his empty threats by now. "Com'on 'here stubbor' bitch." He said as he man handled Rascal up into his arms. Rascal felt a heavy pressure that was not connected to his bowl or his bladder. "Heav'eh fuc-" was as far as the jerk got before Rascal's water broke. There was a hot gush of fluid as the amniotic fluid emptied out of Rascal and the collie felt that it was remarkable that there was that much fluid stored up inside of him. From the chest down, the jerk was thoroughly drenched in the blood tinged, steaming liquid.

For a single moment, the jerk was just staring down at Rascal and the collie had the horrible thought that he was going to drop him. But he didn't get the chance. The jerk lifted his foot for a single step and slipped on the greasy substance now liberally coating the floor of the small kitchen. He fell back, Rascal still against his chest, and landed flat on his back. Rascal, who could not escape the fact that he was quite a lot heavier now than when he'd first met Rose knew that it was with well over 180 lbs that his round, tubby body landed on the jerk's chest. The man wheezed, the wind knocked out of him. Bizarrely, as his eyes rolled up into his head, the jerk enunciated quite clearly, "Mother... Fucker..." Rascal was quite stunned by what had just happened as he stared down at the quite clearly incapacitated human passed out in a wide puddle of odd smelling clear liquid. Though it was a chore, Rascal could sense the human struggling to draw breath under his weight so he clamored off of him and out of the slick pool. The jerk still did not stir and Rascal sat his still leaking rump down on the floor in wonder. Finally he felt giddy with glee at the irony of what had transpired. This was a huge counterstrike against the indignities he'd been force to suffer. But Rascal was initially at a loss of how to make the most of it.

Then a breeze came in through the open door of the trailer and as Rascal turned his head, he knew. The instinct was strong and Rascal knew that for what was coming, he was going to have to trust his new body over everything else. If anything, he could tell that this body had experienced the same before, perhaps even several times before. A little shakily, Rascal walked down the steps out of the trailer for the first time.

Knowing that he didn't have a lot of time left before the puppies came, Rascal waddled as briskly as he could despite the frequent contractions across the wide parking lot where the fair was being set up. It was night, but there were still people going to and fro, carrying blinding lights and Rascal could move but slowly. Twice, the collie had to sit and wait for a huge trailer, like a moving mountain of steel and hydraulics to move across his path as he made an encumbered bee-line towards the trees and bushes beyond the parking lot. At long last he made it, but kept going, looking for cover. Rascal was sure that he didn't want to be found at least until morning. His female instincts were telling him to look for somewhere quiet and secluded, safe. Rascal sure liked the sound of safety, even if for purely selfish reasons.

He found a haven a short distance away from the edge of the parking lot in some bushes grown over a hallow between large thick roots from a nearby tree whose leaves were already beginning to turn gold. Rascal really had wanted to go farther, but his hip was acting up and between the pain and the contractions, he didn't want to take the time to find another suitable place further on. The thick root was a comfortable support against his back. Though he could still hear the work going on down in the fair, it was muffled enough by the vegetation and blocked from easy view. Rascal deeply appreciated the quiet and not having strangers' eyes on him or being accosted or glared at by the jerk for once. If there was one place where Rascal wanted this to happen, it was here nestled in the green leaves, the feel of solid, packed dirt supporting him. The obese collie let out a breath that he felt like he'd been holding in him for a very long time and was finally able to relax now that he was quite alone.

Rascal spent a long time more lying there and resting as much as he could until finally his contractions began to pick up in earnest. He could feel the difference immediately and he knew that something was going on behind him. The last contraction felt quite different. The muscles all along his back stiffened up and Rascal ground himself against the root behind him, but it did little good, the fat padding was too deep. Again, the formerly youthful male collie was reminded of a bad bowl movement as he felt something blocking the passage for the first time. He needed to push. And Rascal did, but it was hard. Puppies might be more soundly shaped that unwieldy human offspring, but as it turned out, they were still quite a lot to pass through what was usually such a narrow opening. Rascal panted with the effort of it, but pushed. His back felt like a solid mass of rock, but he pushed. Rascal realized that he had not thought of one single name for any of the puppies, but he pushed. Pushing the lips of his vaginal opening to their natural limits, something finally squeezed out behind him, the relief was monumental. Rascal bent to try and see what the new puppy would look like... but couldn't reach over the huge dome of his still heaving belly.

Rascal tried another way, but was equally blocked. He grew more frantic as he tried to reach the pup as he knew he needed to immediately, but he was nowhere close to reaching it, he couldn't even see it. He was too fat! He could have easily panicked, instinct fueled by hormones was raging, but Rascal knew that instinct did not factor in the fact that he was four times the weight he should have been. His breath was still heavy, but he forced himself to close his eyes and calm down. 'Just move a little...' he told himself_, 'Just scoot around and get to it...'_ And Rascal put his paws on the dirt and pulled himself around, dragging his useless and heavy hindquarters - which were still semi-paralyzed for the ongoing contractions - forward and then heaving himself around. Rascal grimaced at what he saw.

He'd read descriptions, even saw a video once, but 'television' as he thought of it, was not quite like the reality of the thing. Blood and thick mucus coated the dirt around what looked like a giant purple bogey. Rascal felt something else coming, something softer and greasier, but he ignored it knowing it wasn't as important as the pup in front of him. It was in a sac he knew, and Rascal used the canines on his right side - the left ones were more worn from proprietary use - and griped the sac, ripping it and pulling it away easily. As soon as he saw the wet, greasy pup lying still on the dirt, its umbilical cord trailing away over Rascal's paws back to his rear end, Rascal initially thought the worst had happened. However, as soon as his nose took in the newborn pup's scent, he was filled with the urge to lick. 'Yes, this is what I'm supposed to do.' He thought as he cleaned the new puppy which was all black save for four socks and a white Mohawk reaching from the crown of his head to his tiny shoulders. He licked and licked, especially around the newborn's head and face and as he passed over his tummy, practically bowling over the little thing with his huge tongue, his teeth nipped the chord easily and almost unconsciously. For a long time nothing happened though Rascal was all but fervent with his ministrations.

The sounds of that pups first little peeps was like a world being born. It was amazing, it was a miracle. There was a new life on the planet and it was all because of Rascal. Strangely, he felt grateful to Rose in that instant for allowing him to do something of this magnitude. Picking up the tiny, bawling thing with his closed eyes and tiny, triangular ears gently in his mouth, Rascal deposited him as far down his belly as he could reach. When he latched on and began to nurse at the distended milk sacs which were not extremely saggy on Rascal's belly but very wide over his big tummy and large in volume nonetheless, Rascal felt that there was nothing else better in the world than what he had just helped happen. He was a... a mom.

Rascal delivered the pup's placenta soon after and though the internet said that the bitch would usually eat it after, it tasted foul, like dried blood crossed with diarrhea and tossed it far out into the tame forest with the fling of his neck. The contractions slowed a bit after the active labor, but by this point, Rascal was hoping fervently that there were far fewer pups than the number Rose had told him. Bloated chest heaving, Rascal was already beat after the first pup. In fact, he was so tired that though he wanted to sit and watch in fascination as the first puppy nursed, he just collapsed onto his side, trying to rest while he could. The first puppy's nursing stimulates the labor for the rest of the pups, or so says the Great and Powerful Internet, and indeed, it was less than twenty minutes before Rascal had to start pushing again...

As the heavily obese collie reached out to drag the newest puppy closer to him, he could not believe how tired he was. The sun was lightening the eastern sky through the light canopy of the surrounding trees and three pups were nursing on Rascal's belly; they were greedy, hungry little things. Rascal was drawing in deep, tired breaths as he chewed this newest puppy free of its sac. To Rascal's utter surprise, unlike the three other pups, which were all patched black and white as one would expect border collies to be, this new one was blond, just like a yellow lab. The mother collie had little time to dwell on the new arrival's appearance however as he cleaned her up and, like the others, she too started bawling for milk. Wearily, Rascal put the 'yellow collie' near the others and lay back down. From the stomach down, Rascal felt like he'd been running a marathon; which he sort of was actually. The fatigue had worn deep over the last several hours. He might as well have been gutted, the muscles from crotch to belly were like jelly, they quivered and shook against the fatigue ground into them and Rascal wasn't sure that he could do more, even though he felt another puppy sitting there, high, but ready to go. Rascal tried to push, but his muscles rebelled and didn't seem to want to comply with his demands. Rascal let his head hit the ground and a tear leaked from his eye onto the dirt. He knew what was happening, he'd done enough research_. '"Uterine inertia" that's what they called it.'_ Thought Rascal piteously, 'It happens when the muscles lining the uterus wear out before the labor is finished. Injections of oxytocin can help, but is usually treated with caesarian section' - which Rascal understood as being cut open on the belly and the pups removed by hand - but neither of those options were available here outside the parking lot at the edge of Texas's wide open wilderness. Rascal shed more tears as he recalled the rest of the article, 'This presents severe risk to the pups because they can suffocate while in the vaginal tract or while in the uterus.' Fearing for the puppy he could feel still inside of him, imagining suffocating while so close to fresh air, to life, Rascal renewed his efforts... but in vain. His muscles just weren't responding, his contractions were weakening even as the first four puppies nursed greedily at Rascal's tummy, pushing the laden milk sacs with their paws. Rascal hung his head in defeat, 'Four out of ten isn't nearly good enough.'

The pups mewled as the ate, but still the contractions did not come back in force. Exhausted, Rascal could barely keep his head up and lick one of the four occasionally as he tried constantly to take deeper breaths and concentrate on the muscles deep inside his bloated abdomen, desperately trying to save the four's siblings. Rascal cocked his head as he heard movement in the forest. Rascal's heart leapt in sudden joy as he thought that the humans had finally come looking for him. Rascal desperately wanted to see a vet and though the prospect of being cut open like one of the jerk's sardines frightened him, the collie thought it would be worth it to save even one of the little lives now trapped inside his oversized belly... But the noise wasn't caused by a human.

The bushes nearby rustled and Rascal saw a shadow move low to the ground. There was a sound like slurping and chewing gristle. It came from the direction Rascal had thrown the placentas. Suddenly the collie remembered the primary reason the bitch usually ate the stinking, odiferous placenta. Rascal's spine seemed to turn to ice and he curled up pathetically, though with his barrel shaped torso, he was hardly able to offer any shelter at all to the pups still sucking noisily at his tummy. The collie tried to quiet his breaths, but he knew it was pointless, the stench of blood and birthing fluid hung heavily in the air. Hopelessly, Rascal knew he wasn't getting up from his spot either. It made him sick that the depth of his torso prevented him from curling around his newly whelped pups. He was unable to provide even the semblance of security, though they continued to suckle, completely unaware of whatever it was that was nearby. Rascal stared with shock-still eyes at the opening into the little den between the roots as the sounds of eating stopped and the sound of paws on dirt grew louder.

The sun was up now, glinting in wavering shafts between the leaves. Rascal saw a narrow face emerge from the shadows of the deeper forest. Tan furred and rough worn, it was attached to a rather lean and scraggly figure smaller even than Rascal's original body and not nearly as well muscled. But relative size did not matter, the predator was mobile and Rascal and his bloated, exhausted form was not. A huge, bushy tail waved back and forth in anticipation as the eyes glinted as a tiny bean of sunlight fell across them. Rascal sat up as well as he could with his belly turned to the side for the nursing pups. He spoke to the coyote, "Er...H-hello... C-cousin."

The coyote had eyes only for the four tiny figures mewling and completely ignorant of their immanent peril at the base of Rascal's belly. He licked his chops. "Well, I do declare that my little trip into the city has paid off in full." He said drawling his syllables and moving closer, "And what a find! My, my and all I'd been hoping for was some decent garbage."

Desperately, Rascal tried to scuttle away, but there was nowhere to go, his back was literally against a wall of wood. Even the muscles in Rascal's hindlegs were tired and unruly as he tried to drag himself just inches deeper into the hollow. The coyote continued to step closer. "Y-you know about the fair right?" said Rascal nearly hysterically - why did it have to end like this?! - "Loads of great food. Humans just tossing away food left and right. Why don't you go check it out?"

The coyote actually paused and had himself a bit of a laugh, "I might just do that... After."

Rascal showed his fangs and snarled ferociously. He felt ready to die for the four tiny things attached to the nipples on his tummy. But it was useless, the coyote was wisely approaching down from Rascal's rear, where he could not reach... It was over.

The coyote shoulders were prominent as he crouched for the spring. Rascal still growled and barked as impotent as an image on a television screen. Then there was a heavy thump, a crack of bone splintering and a high pitched yowl from the coyote who immediately dashed away hopping on three legs deeper into the forest.

"Ah-yah! Fuck'ah!" shouted the human known as "the jerk" as he came crashing through the nearby bush. He bent to retrieve the hammer he'd used to smite the wild coyote. He turned and then saw the puppies nursing, dropping his hammer again. "Jesus!" he cried and bent over Rascal's still heaving form. He reached out and touched Rascal's belly as if for the first time. "Chuck. Ge'ov'ah 'ere! 'Avey, oo' too, I foun' 'er!" Rascal collapsed and was never so relieved to have human hands supporting his massive frame. Aware only of the constant mewling of his new pups and of the pain stretching inside under his layers of fat from crotch to diaphragm, Rascal could not recall all the tumbled, rapid events that followed as humans moved about him at a speed even greater than that they used to assemble the great fair. He knew that he was soon in a car and that his pups were not nursing, though he could hear them close by. They were in a box lined with towels beside him, but oh, the pain, it was terrible. Something was no longer right. Then four people were carrying him into a building, all grunted under his weight, grips constantly shifting under his soft fat. Rascal was on a table and everywhere humans were either talking or gawking. There was lots of arguing, lots of humans pointing at him and his engorged belly and shouting. The jerk extracted a big stack of green bills from an old sock and handed them to a human dressed in white and Rascal was moved again, this time to a cold metal table with blinding lights overhead. Here the humans all covered their faces in paper masks and paper hats. Rascal couldn't take the pain anymore, but he still quivered in fear when he saw the tray full of knives and other strange steel tools. A plastic mask was placed over Rascal's face too and he heard a hissing noise. The lights faded and went dark.