“Give a Dog a Bone,” by Jeffrey Steingarten, was originally published in the December 1998 issue of Vogue.

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"A fat bitch," I announced, licking the juice of a wood-grilled lamb sausage from my fingers, "is never an easy whelper." I was reading from the breeding section of a book called The Golden Retriever: 47Exciting Full-Color Photos . Sky King listened intently but said nothing, and not simply because he had not yet learned to talk. I have found that young males of all species have a limited attention span when it comes to discussions of whelping and obesity.

But, as always, Sky King's gaze was eloquent—as it had been earlier that evening when I dumped a plastic cupful of upscale dry dog-foo

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