My furry motivator.

This little face is the primary reason I shouldn't be fat. Blogger peeps, meet Skye girl. She's my super neurotic, mischief making, half deaf rescued pup who sometimes gets misunderstood. Never by me, though. She's my little sidekick. My partner.

Skye girl is kicking things into high gear now that the sun is shining and things are warming up. She's doing her part to motivate me to get off my fat ass too.

These are her tactics:

(in her own words, sort of)

1. Get up really early in the morning and stretch to get ready for the day. This needs to be as loud a stretch as possible (jingle the tags a lot) to hopefully get mommy's attention without having to resort to other methods.

2. When the loud exaggerated jingly stretching doesn't work, resort to grunting and whine-howling.

3. When the whine-howling fails, resort to more physical means by nuzzling mommy's face or butt (whichever happens to be facing that side of the bed) until she finally gets the hint and gets up. "Gheesh mommy, I have to pee. It's not like I can just open the door myself. Come on."

4. When mommy finally lets me out, make the rounds in the back yard, making sure everything is exactly where it was the day before.

5. If anything has been compromised, sniff the area thoroughly to determine if it has become edible. Even if it hasn't become edible, take a nibble anyway. If it's yummy, keep nibbling until mommy yells.

6. When mommy yells, play up the deafness and ignore her until she makes an ass of herself by coming outside in her pajamas and fuzzy feet for all the neighbors to see to 'get my attention'.

7. After making a thorough check of the yard and deciding it's warm enough to go play, run back inside and find mommy who is probably back in bed by now.

8. Repeat steps 1-3 as needed.

9. Run up to mommy at full speed and then run to the front door and then run back to mommy at full speed and then run back to the front door and then...you get the idea. Repeat until mommy gets her sweat pants.

10. Continue to run back and forth at full speed while mommy gets dressed but add play bows and whine-howls to keep mommy moving. The more you annoy her, the faster she moves. 11. Stand at the front door and continue to whine-howl until mommy gets her sneakers on, grabs extra plastic bags (Is she ever gonna need them - oh boy, I hope she's ready. I'm brewing up some extra humiliation for her today!), chapstick, keys and all kinds of other crap that she doesn't even need.

12. When she's finally ready, make her walk her big butt all the way around the neighborhood including the muddy park. Even if the punk kids are out there shenaniganing. Boy, she really hates them.

13. After we walk, mommy still needs to be supervised. If she even tries to eat anything bad, I nuzzle my way in there and give her the stink eye until she puts the fork down. If I give her enough guilt and make that really pitiful face, she might even give me some. She's so gullible.

See? There is just no excuse for my fatness with a drill sergeant like her in the house.

*Just fyi - that pizza picture is several months old. I'm also pretty sure it's wheat crust with fat free everything.

** That last part, after 'wheat' may be a lie, but it really is an old picture.