Eat, Drink, and Be Ambulatory

I have a memory, and a mandate, but no sense of the future. So while I walk over to my bowl every few hours, I don't expect it to be full of food, I just remember that there was food there before so maybe there is some there now. If there is food in it, I eat. If there isn't, I don't.

If I get up and I can't walk, or if someone isn't there to pet me, or if my food bowl is empty, I try to work out an alternative.

Because my mandate is to generally be nice to people (following my definition of nice), and be absolutely loyal to my caretaker, I'm a logical problem solver, but unable to plan. There is no future in my world except when someone holds a leash out and I know that my bladder won't explode -- this time.

A big difference between me and humans, is that humans have the capacity to plan. But most of them don't, so they actually have the same limitation as me -- except they feel guilty about it.

For example, if I had a choice about what I eat, I would eat arthritis-friendly food -- reasonable portions balanced in fat, protein and carbohydrates, no hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, no corn syrup, no refined sugar, no dairy, no wheat, lots of high-vitamin and high-mineral fresh vegetables, and lots of purified water.

I know that too much food and the wrong food results in a fat ass which aggravates hip and knee joints which exacerbates arthritis. (And, overweight people without arthritis are four-to-seven times more likely to experience early onset RA.)

Knowing this, as a logical dog I would think humans would head for the rice cakes, broiled fish and fresh greens, but instead they've got house accounts at McDonald's where a giant fry is their idea of vegetable intake.

I would also think humans would value exercise. Even though they haven't figured out how to make another human throw a stick so they can fetch it, every human, at some level of consciousness, knows that exercise is beneficial whether they have arthritis or not. They say they like running, but they mean running water and watching someone else run for public office.

If, one morning, I can't walk, I don't hear someone's voice in my head telling me if I hadn't eaten that 900th pizza, and if I had exercised more, I wouldn't be at this non-walking point in my life. I don't hear the voice because I don't have guilt. This is why I can take a dump in your bed when you don't pay enough attention to me, and then smile at you when you get home. And, it's why, after you smack me, and clean up your bed, you come back and want to make up, assuming it's your fault for not paying enough attention to me.

I wonder what humans think when they wake up one morning and can't walk?