Thank you, Bixby.

After trying every wonder diet, weight loss plan, product, process, pill, food, exercise equipment, activity, routine, video and anything else you can imagine, I was still overweight and miserable. On top of that, I had just become pregnant with my first child and assumed I would only remain overweight forever, only more so. While I was busy remembering my convertible and thinking about how I would never have another one, I was driving home from work when I saw a mysterious dead animal in the road. Apparently, someone had hit it and kept driving, as there was no one in sight on that desolate country road.

As I got closer, I still couldn't tell what it was, but I saw the poor thing was still moving. I stopped the car when I was next to it, thinking I should get it out of the road, but when I opened my door, I saw it was a puppy. It hadn't been hit and was dying, but was just too young to walk on its own. His mother must have been taking him somewhere and couldn't carry him any further or had had a change of heart. Either way, I couldn't leave him there and got back in the car, putting this tiny puppy with the huge paws on my knee, saying, "We'll have to find you a home." By the time I got to my house, I was saying, "We'll have to find you a name."

Bixby was a couple of months old when I decided to get him obedience lessons and it was the best decision I ever made. I once had a dog that would run out the door whenever she could and wouldn't come back without really making me work for it and finally was stolen while on one of her jaunts. I didn't want Bixby to suffer the same fate because of my irresponsibility at not training my pets properly, so obedience training he got, or should I say we got.

I never realized how quickly dogs could learn and how easy training a dog to listen could be. Once per week, the trainer would come to the house for Bixby's lesson and every night after work, I would walk Bixby to the park down the street and spend an hour or so practicing what we had learned. The park was down a hill and the walk back home each night the first week made me wish I had opted for a goldfish, but I didn't quit and the second week saw me racing Bixby back up the hill with little effort.

The weeks went by happily and as my pregnancy progressed, instead of gaining the weight most women have to endure, I was losing an average of ten pounds per week. My doctor was extremely concerned I had been dieting, but I explained that I had found a puppy in the road and we were helping each other. By the time my daughter was born, I was at my ideal weight.