I weigh 15 pounds on my Vet’s scale. Sometimes I weigh 75lbs. If I am dozing or asleep on your side of the bed, I’ll weigh 75lbs. Try to move me and you can tell.
How can a 15lbs dog weigh 75lbs? It’s a sort of Zen-thing I can do. Let me explain:
You know how in the golf swing when you get the club up to the top of your backswing there is this momentary pause (not paws) before you start the club back down? What precedes the downswing is a subtle weight shift from your back leg to your front. At that moment you are pressing on the ground harder with your front foot and you have increased the pressure you are exerting on the ground then and for the whole time while you are completing your swing. It’s called “leverage” and it helps you hit the ball further.
Same deal with jumping up in the air. Think of a basketball player getting ready to make a jump shot. As he steadies the ball in both hands, he crouches slightly and then leaps straight up, releasing the ball at the top of his jump. At the moment he goes from a crouch to straightening his legs he is using leverage against the floor to push off. If he weighs 200 pounds standing straight up (or on my vet’s scale), he exerts considerably more force than 200lbs into the floor while he is pushing off to get up in the air. The vet’s scale probably says 275lbs.
I might note that you can do the same thing lying in bed. Tonight as you lie there, push yourself into the mattress, breathe slowly and maintain that pressure into the mattress. You are creating leverage and the effect is that you weigh more. As you sit there now reading this, lift your feet off the floor – creating leverage into the seat you’re on. You are harder to pick up now than you were a second ago with your feet on the floor. Leverage.
So I know my leverage and I weigh 75lbs when I’m on your side of the bed. That is why you “let a sleeping dog lie” – you can’t move us anyway!
Well, anyway, that's what I think.
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