Consider the plight of Murphy O'Brien. Not long ago, Murphy found two loaves of bread: pumpkin and Wonder. If you laid them end to end, they'd be the size of Murphy's torso. Murphy never gets to eat bread, and he considered himself quite fortunate to encounter two unattended loaves.

Actually, he didn't ``encounter'' them. He dragged them onto the floor. He had devoured the entire pumpkin loaf and was halfway through the Wonder Bread when Jim Evans found him, swollen and listless.

Murphy is a cocker spaniel, and he had misbehaved. Jim, the boyfriend of Murphy's owner, knew he had a bread emergency on his hands. He rushed to the vet and showed up late for work in San Mateo while he waited for Murphy to have his stomach pumped.

So ends another ``exploding dog'' story. It is one of the miracles of science that a small dog will enthusiastically eat a lump of fallen pate' the size of a car battery, even as his eyes are rolling back in his head and he is unable to walk. In this state of gluttony, every dog turns into a Far Side cartoon. You can almost see the thought-balloon over his snout: ``This tastes good. That's all I know. I don't care if I die.''

I'm sorry to say that when I was a child, I found this hilarious, and I often challenged my beloved golden retriever, Sassy, to eating contests. She could lay waste to a bundt cake in 11 seconds. Of course, I am now deeply ashamed of encouraging Sassy along the destructive path of EDS, Exploding Dog Syndrome.

I once knew a black Labrador retriever named Abby whose eating disorder led her to stake out the kitchen during catered parties. She made a habit of standing directly in front of someone carrying a large tray in the hopes that whatever was on it would suddenly become carpet-accessible. She once arranged for a huge platter of holiday rum balls to be overturned. There were about 300, and she ate most of them as she raced the caterers, who tried in vain to rescue the food.

Abby became not only very ill but also stinking drunk. She staggered over to the guiests, belching and throwing up on their shoes like Johnny Rotten.

The question is, why didn't Abby stop after the 100th rum ball? And why didn't Murphy stop after his first loaf of bread? Why did my brother's yellow Lab, Lily, not realize something was horribly wrong when she commenced eating an entire wheel of Brie--wrapped?

I put the question to verterinarian Monte Schwartz of the Boulevard Pet Hospital in Campbell.

``It's unusual for a dog to eat so much that he's in real danger (of exploding),'' Dr. Schwartz told me. ``But it's like the woman who eats a two-pound box of See's candy. If a dog finds the equivalent, like a garbage can full of meat scraps, he might try to eat it all because who knows when he'll have another chance?''

In other words, when it comes to food, dogs have no shame or dignity. Even Dr. Schwartz confessed his giant schnauzer recently raided the kitchen after the doctor had made a run to House of Bagels. The dog consumed an entire challah bread. ``And a lot of biscotti,'' Dr. Schwartz added.

Must one be reduced to bellowing at a beloved pet, ``Rum balls and challah are not for dogs?!''

I asked Jim Evans if he thought Murphy O'Brien had learned anything from his foolish bread-abuse experience.

``Well, he was really wrung out after the stomach pumping,'' Jim said. ``But if he could do it again today, he probably would.''