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***

I put my plan into motion immediately. I saw no reason for delay. Again, the road between decision and action was short for a dog. I closed the gate behind Dizzy and re-latched the lock, making sure to snap it into place. The other group had arrived before us. Fatty's ongoing mission to break into the trove of discarded food in the dumpster had devolved into a waiting game. Fatty said that there were different items lying around every night. He felt confident that an alignment of different circumstances would eventually leave a way open into the prize if we just waited. "Some night, they are going to leave a box or something out there that we can climb on and use to climb out. Then, we'll be able to raid the whole thing." Fatty had said. But until then, there was not much to do but scavenge the odd useful bit of scrap from around the receptacle.

I left Fatty and his high hopes as it was clear there had been no more progress tonight. As for my night of discovery from the other pack, Pink Nose said nothing and neither did I. I would rather focus on something that I could actually deal with instead. Leaving the group behind, I went to where Fat Gut lay. He hadn't joined us, again a relatively new development in the past couple weeks.

From a distance, it was easy to see that Fat Gut was at the heaviest he'd ever been in his life. Any sallowness left behind from his traumatic weight loss was long gone, replaced by a plump, rounded shape which protruded evenly at the sides like rising dough. He was not lying on his belly, in fact, he'd taken to lying almost exclusively on his side. His namesake protruded low and dense and thick away from his undercarriage. Pink and mostly hairless, his belly was only a little less thick than his rising flank. It flowed up to his ankle, and its mass caused his free leg to point up at an angle against it, knee towards sky. How to measure corpulence as vast as Fat Gut's? His overall appearance was not so great from when we fought and yet, I could see the difference in his volume by comparing it to memory. Once the flanks get so wide, what is another paw's width at either side? Only Fat Gut really knew, and I feared from his behavior that he knew far better than he wished.

I sat before where he lay, not sleeping, but staring aimlessly, perhaps listlessly, though of course, I know he wouldn't have moved, perhaps not until Breakfast unless he needed to pee. That was why he was here under the canopy after all, easy access to water. Fat Gut lifted his head and then, groaning with effort, trundled his forequarters around so that he could put his elbows on the ground; or at least attempt to, it looked instead like he rested them on the overgrown flesh which swamped and mostly buried them from sight. I didn't lie down. The difference between our eye levels was vast. "What's up, Topsy?" He asked, waving his thickened tail lazily. His croup was so thick only the last half of it was visible, despite my vantage point.

I wanted to ask how he was feeling, but I knew that was the wrong approach for what I had to do. "We need to talk Fat Gut." I intoned.

Smartly, his ears twitched, though their bases were being encroached by high rolls behind his head. "So talk." Said Fat Gut unconcernedly.

Already there were dogs gathering around, Fatty and Terrier-face were foremost, but Pink Nose was there too, watching from a distance. I took a breath and then swallowed, trying to banish fear and doubt. "Fat Gut I..." But failed. I cleared my throat and tried again, "I'm concerned about your condition, Fat Gut."

His beady eyes widened with the repeated use of his name, but clearly he was perplexed. "My condition? What do you mean?"

I was already in. It was easier to continue. "I mean your ability to get around. I'm concerned about you."

He tried to deflect the matter, "Well, there's no reason to be concerned. I get around as well as I need. Obviously, I'm the one doing the best around here, I'd be more concerned about Spinner. He's gained hardly anything in the last month."

"No Fat Gut." I said more loudly and lowered my head. "You're hardly walking anymore. I can see how hard it is for you just to get up and you're putting more weight on."

"Well, of course I am!" sputtered Fat Gut, more lively now. "What, do you expect me to let Fatty get ahead of me?" With a forepaw, he grasped at several pounds of loose flesh which bulged roundly from his shoulder to the right of his brisket which flowed still farther across the ground. "I've finally got my shape back." He sniffed and then pulled out his ace. "Besides, my feet are still healing. I promise you, I'm feeling stronger every week that goes by."

But I'd known he'd say this. "I don't think your feet are the problem here, Fat Gut. I think they've all healed up a long time ago."

Fat Gut snarled, pushing himself up with his forepaws, but only a little of course, given the weight of his forequarters. "You're calling me a liar?"

There was an air of awe in the yard. Lying, that was something really only understood by members of the Talkie. For the rest, it was a vague concept, and still hardly used even if it was understood. But I still doubted, and inside I knew he was doing precisely that. "I don't think your feet are lame, Fat Gut. It was many, many months ago now that we fought. And you had human medicine for the first month after. You might have thought they were hurt for a time after you came back, and I'm sure they were. But they are healed now as much as they ever are going to be by resting."

Furling his thick brows, Fat Gut snapped, planting a forepaw on the turf and wobbling the huge bulk behind him. "You don't know that! What do you know about healing or medicine? Or my pain?" he threw in at last.

I rose and began to walk around him. He was powerless to stop me. "I can know." I started simply. Other dogs were watching and while I knew I was doing this partly for their benefit and future support, it was also necessary for Fat Gut to see this too, I think. I stopped at his rump. "How long has it been since you last saw your hind feet, Fat Gut?"

Obviously, Fat Gut had prepared more denials for further accusation, but he wasn't prepared for my simple question. He sat inert, eyes barely able to peer at me over the swell of his abdomen.

"Well? How long?" Fat Gut didn't answer. I wondered if he even remembered. "Well, it's certainly been since before the fight wasn't it?" I said. "I've looked at your feet a lot, Fat Gut, even if you didn't notice. I was tore up afterwards, as you know. I couldn't stand that I had lamed you when you were at your peak."

"Topsy, we already..." started Fat Gut, his voice a strange mix of empathy and outrage.

"I know. That's not my point though. What is, is that when you came back from wherever they took you, you had great big scars on your feet from where I bit you." I lowered my head, "And the flesh was uneven in places."

Fat Gut said nothing. What I was telling him now was entirely new information to him. However, he jumped when I placed my paw on his hanging foot. Although "jump" may be the wrong word, "quaked" might have suited better.

"You feel that?" I asked and I sniffed his foot for good measure. "There's no lumps left and the scars are gone too. I can only just make out where they were. Your foot is fine, Fat Gut, both of them."

The members of the Talkie around us who could follow the conversation in all its detail began to talk rapidly amongst themselves. Only Pink Nose looked unsurprised that I was calling out Fat Gut like this, and none be he could know my true aim.

Fat Gut tore his foot away from my grasping paw, but not very far for the flesh of his abdomen ahead of it. "So what if my feet are better?" he said nonplussed. "I don't think it's any concern of yours how I move about, save that I can and do when I feel like it."

"When you have no choice you mean." I said. Fat Gut must have known what I was going to suggest given how hard he was resisting. "Are you going to sit there and deny that you aren't perfectly happy about how much you can get around?"

"I was planning on sitting here regardless. And I plan on sitting here until I have a good reason to move. Like breakfast." Huffed Fat Gut.

"Don't twist my words around. I'm serious." And I completed my circuit of his nearly beached body. Real anger was starting to suffuse me, it put a hint of a growl in my voice. "I'm not playing now, Fat Gut. There have got to be some changes and the changes need to start now."

Fat Gut licked his chops worriedly. Inside the cavernous abyss his midsection housed, a deep and unpleasant grinding suffused the air. "I don't think I need to change anything." He insisted. "I've gotten to be the fattest one here with my own habits. If anything, I think you ought to try to be more like me. Anyone here would benefit."

Fat Gut really believed, down to his core everything he was saying, I realized then. Not having yet left the yard, all the curious things I'd started feeling had never affected him. But no, I'd known even before a disquiet, a subtle wrongness that I couldn't describe. Fat Gut was definitely deluding himself, but he was capable of understanding things as I now saw them, limited in scope though my understanding of the situation was at this point. It was then that I realized that Fat Gut was a representation of everything our culture and everything I'd known to be true up until then was. He was the eventuality of any dog born to it, and I would never have questioned him or his values had I never known the little hints leading me to something greater that as yet I could not see. "Fat Gut." I said in a low voice. "The first thing that you have to understand is that there is more to life than being the very fattest."

Gasps behind me. I could hardly believe I'd said the words myself, but there they were. It was almost sacrilege, and from the whites of Fat Gut's eyes, it was indeed blasphemy. He was speechless. "Hear me out." I said in a loud voice that would carry to the others. "I'm not saying that you shouldn't be heavy if you've got the appetite and the build for it. I'm not saying that you should quit gaining either, even you Fat Gut. We all have a right to try to get as big as we can if we want." I lowered my head, trying to capture Fat Gut's eyes again. "And I know that you're not done growing, yet Fat Gut. And I'm looking forward to see how wide and heavy you can be in the end. But that isn't the only thing. That's what I'm trying to tell you, Fat Gut. You can't keep growing and ignore everything else."

"Balance!" shouted someone behind me. It sounded like Pink Nose.

I sat down ahead of Fat Gut, looking down at him. It was a while before he responded. But he shook his head while doing so. "You're only saying all that because you went outside the fence. I knew no good would come..."

I couldn't believe how stubborn he was! But I shouldn't have been surprised. "This has nothing to do with the fence or anything outside it." I barked down at him. "This is all about you as a part of my pack and my beta."

"No, no, no..." went Fat Gut, shaking his head. "I don't know what's gotten into you. But you can't go around changing everything like..."

"I can change whatever I want." I said hotly. "I'm Alpha and you have to live with it. You're the one who taught me that."

That got him. Fat Gut collapsed to his side and there was reflexive movement in his flank, like he was trying to roll over, but his midriff had gotten so heavy that it was impossible, not without his full effort and leverage with his legs. "Whatever you want, Topsy."

I frowned, still unsatisfied. I knew Fat Gut was unwilling to break his creed, but this was a change I felt sure needed to have at least some internal compliance, even if I would force him in the end. I got down onto my chest and cocked my head, noses inches apart. "You're not going to just flash your belly at me and expect this to be over, Fat Gut. You're going to cooperate with me actively. I'm not going to snap at your heels from now on."

Fat Gut breathed exasperatedly, "What do you want from me? I still don't understand why you're doing this all of a sudden."

I still had one last point to make. "Fat Gut. I'm doing this because, honestly, you're not a good beta anymore."

"What?!" he barked, outraged. He was more willing to roll over and accept my decision, no matter how much he hated it than admit that he did not deserve his status.

But I stuck to my guns. "You've never even been as good a beta as either Fatty or Terrier-face. If you were Alpha, even now, that'd be fine, but you're not and you're not a good beta."

"I... I am... All the other dogs look up to me." He sputtered, and I saw red lines creeping into the barely visible whites of his eyes.

I got up. "They look up to you, but only as an ornament now. Come on. Who can take you seriously now? The pups can run all over you. The only reason why I can leave you behind to guard the gate is because the thing locks itself. You've done nothing useful."

As I was talking, Fat Gut's ire began boiling over in his eyes. I doubted he had ever been as angry at me as he was right now and the anger mounted because he had no way to unleash it on me. "Topsy!" shouted Fatty from behind. "That's enough!"

It was extremely bold of Fatty, but I guessed that he couldn't stand me putting down his former Alpha. But I'd accomplished what I'd wanted, I'd lit the fire in Fat Gut rather than putting it out. It didn't need to say more. "I can't believe you would say that to me, Topsy. After everything I've done for you." The words came like stones shoved between clenched teeth, but it was all he could offer me since he could not offer his fangs or claws.

I didn't say anything as pretentious as he'll thank me later. Instead, I declared, "We're going to do everything we can to get you moving around on your own again. You're going to follow any direction I give you, or any direction that Fatty or Terrier-face or anyone else gives you. You'll be walking as well as you used to before our fight, or better. Then maybe you'll be useful again."

Fat Gut sat dejected on the ground, seemingly possessed of barely enough strength to lift his flanks for each breath. His snout continued shaking left and right ever so slightly. "It's not that simple, Topsy. I know what you want to do, it's not going to make me walk better. It's just going to torture me."

"You better hope you're wrong then," I said coldly, "Or you're going to be tortured till it comes time for the humans to take you."

Fat Gut chuffed loudly, "I won't lose weight. I won't, even for you Topsy." And he touched his paw again to shoulder meat and the flesh of his brisket, almost protectively.

Finally, a reason to laugh. "I'm not asking you to. In fact, I'd love to see you heavier at the end of this, if you'd stop being such a puppy about it." I wasn't going to conquer his disbelief. Not now and not for a long while. But finally, I'd said everything I'd had to say and it had not altogether gone as badly as I'd feared. To press in the new lesson, I found Fatty in the crowd around the canopy.

"Fatty." I said simply, taking stock.

"Topsy." Said Fatty smartly, but he looked little different from before, concerned perhaps for the seal dog behind me, but not at all defiant. Fatty had benefitted too since the nightly jaunts had started.

"I'd like you to get Fat Gut up and get him going in laps around the yard. Push him to go as far as he can. I'll be watching.

Fatty was smart enough to understand just what I wanted. Like a good beta, he wasted no time either. I watched him go to Fat Gut. They shared words for a short while, mostly Fat Gut complaining, but he found no give in Fatty and altogether, Fat Gut did not resist for long. The most corpulent dog staggered to his feet, taking even longer than was usual. "Bite him if you have to, Fatty" I barked at him.

However, Fat Gut rose faster before his became necessary. Fatty walked Fat Gut to the edge of the fence and looked back at me. I assented and gestured with my nose and they went off, though at a pace that was excruciatingly slow. I wondered when Fat Gut had started walking so slowly, but then I usually saw him at rest. But it was obvious that in the same time that the rest of the Talkie and I had improved, Fat Gut had declined from a combination of finally pushing past his old weight record and abject lethargy that I'd enabled by giving him a willing helper. So the gap between us and him was wide, and even the past memory I'd had of him, so watching him waddle, or not even as much as that, I lost some hope for the promise I'd made him.

And Fat Gut did not waddle. He was moving his legs too slowly for that. He took ponderous steps, one foot at a time. My reaction was to call to Fatty to nip him to pick it up, for I thought he was doing it on purpose. But one look at Fat Gut face, and I could see the honest strain there. That and recent memory told me that this, honestly was the speed that he now moved at, though a snail could scarcely be slower. After the first minute, he did pick up some more speed and his flanks began to rock left and right widely. At his ankles, his mammoth pink gut rocked, bounced and jiggled harshly at uneven times. At each step, the smooth curve of it touched the inside of each foot in turn. However, more importantly, I observed that Fat Gut was bowlegged to a very wide angle. It was going to be too much to hope for that he'd ever run, or even jog for that matter. But that wasn't my goal thankfully.

The thought of weight loss did enter my mind, and that in itself was a shock, but it was quickly dismissed. As I watched him struggled past the first corner, Fatty leading him, I knew that Fat Gut had spoken truth. No force from anyone was going to make him part with an ounce of his precious hoarded flesh. But I didn't want him to. Even now, looking at him and his deliberate steps, I thought back to the time when his figure had stunned me with its prominence and regality. I wanted him to be that again, and more if he could. In my mind's eye, I saw Fat Gut stand proudly, his belly dropping to an inch above the ground, flanks as wide as a dog's width to either side of him and a slow, but easy gait that set the whole mass of him into a hypnotic quiver. That was what I wanted for my pack mate, and I am sure, Fat Gut wanted that for himself as well. He didn't know it, or want to believe it now, but I was sure this was going to help him to that goal someday.