Battle of the Bulge

May 27, 2009 -

When I adopted Honey Pie, I had no idea how much she loved food. From what I could tell, her nutritional intake was dead on. Granted, she'd lived at animal control most of her life where her food was probably strictly regulated - I'm sure she got just the proper amount for her size at precisely the right time of day with little opportunity for treats between. It showed - she was in great shape when she came to me. Lean, but not too lean, muscular where she should be and her teeth looked good (she was definitely well-acquainted with straight-up dry kibble).

She's simply not the same dog these dogs. There's a little extra Honey Pie to love and a little can go a long way on a dog with stubby legs and such a long back. I really started worrying when my little lean Corgi - this same dog who used to regularly run her own solo agility trials throughout the house, hurdling couches in a single bound, was now struggling just to get up on the bed.

I knew the root of the problem: Honey Pie was harboring a serious love of cat food.

When I moved into my new house, I convinced myself that forking over that kind of dough for something to call my own was worth it, in part, because a guest room meant Fat Louie could have some space to call his own. I planned to turn an unused closet in the spare room into his sanctuary - it was big enough to house his litter box at one end plus his beds. It was to be the ultimate place where Fat Louie could go to avoid the rest of The Pack (me included).

As "The Closet of Lou's Dreams"; came to life, I finished it off with Louie's all time favorite product ever: a gravity feeder. That's right - the new house was supposed to mean that Lou could actually eat his own food as he felt like it without having to race to gulp it down before the dogs could get to it. The three closet doors were slid open just enough to let only him through and the Fat Louie's world was right. If only for three months.

That's how long it took one Miss Honey Pie to figure out how to open the closet doors, pillage the gravity feeder, and return to the comforts of her own bed before anyone was the wiser. I returned home from work several times to find Lou seated in front of the open closet doors, complaining at the top of his lungs and staring at me as if I had willed the invasion of his happy space to happen. I would reconfigure the entire sanctuary quickly, refill his feeder, promise myself that Honey Pie wouldn't open the doors  -  this time -  and return home to the same results. I started stressing out. Lou got increasingly angrier. And Honey Pie, well, Honey Pie earned a new nickname: Chunk. 

There was just no stopping Chunk. I bought a gate with a door in it that only Louie could get through. I put it up in front of the closet. Chunk knocked it down. I put it up at the entrance to the room. It never stood a chance positioned there. I returned the gate. I called my handyman. He came over with a sketch book and a million ideas for building "A feeding platform" inside of the closet. Each option was quite expensive and none really seemed to have potential to live through the sheer force that is Chunk's love of food.

In the end, the handyman cut up some huge wooden dowels to precise measurements and jammed between the wall and each closet door, again leaving a gap only Lou could fit through. This simple remedy seems to be working - Honey Pie has dropped some of her weight, Lou hasn't let out a primal scream in two weeks and I'm no longer buying a bag of cat food per day. I have no doubt Honey Pie spends a good portion of her waking hours hard at work in front of that closet, plotting, silently cursing and planning to overcome those dowels. And I also feel like she'll eventually succeed. But at least I have some time to think and enjoy a lower cat food bill.

--Cat