Old Dogs and New Tricks

This is Suzie.

She's 13-years-old. And she's got a grapefruit-size tumor that hangs under belly that’s probably terminal cancer. Among her other ailments are chronically yucky ears, horrible arthritis and halitosis. And she has really, really bad heartworms.

The vet is always surprised she's still alive. But Suzie is a survivor and she keeps hanging on. If it hadn't been for "the incident" she'd be in much better shape.

It happened about seven years ago. We were at a high school football game when Suzie was hit by a car. The impact was so violent that it left her spinal exposed. As my momma and daddy hauled her off to the emergency vet, my sisters and I never thought we'd see Suzie again. We figured she'd be humanely put down.

Six days of doggie intensive care and $5,000 later Suzie came home stitched up like Frankendog. She had bit of a limp and gnarly scars, but she was the same old Suzie, except that now she that she had moved inside full time for her recovery.

Predictably, Suzie never moved back into the classification of yard dog. She'd seen the good life and now expected a padded bed and air-conditioned room to lounge in. She moved in with my baby sister, who Suzie always loved the most anyway.

When Baby Sis moved to college nothing changed for Suzie. Except she insisted her bed be moved into the living room for maximum attention. There she'd hold court with my mom and dad, barking when she wanted a Beggin' Strip or growling when the other, younger dogs bothered her.

Side story: Suzie might be more loved than me by my father. He once was listing the names of all the children. I can't remember what he was referring to exactly, but he named all my sisters AND my first cousin then ended the statement with "and Suzie and them."

I was the "and them."

The freaking dog made roll call, and I was left to the non-important title of "and them."

Which brings us to present day.

It seems that Suzie has learned a new trick. Something that if you didn't see for yourself, you'd never believe the old, crippled, edge-of-death dog could do.

It all started about three months ago when my father fell asleep while driving and had a bad wreck. Having had a history of restless sleep, my mom assumed my dad had been sleepwalking and in his midnight kitchen rendezvous had opened the fridge and pulled the entire contents of the lower shelves onto the floor.

Big Daddy denied this accusation greatly. "I would remember eating an entire ham!" he exclaimed.

But the phenomenon happened night-after-night. All the while, Big Daddy stood by his claim that he was not the Refrigerator Bandit, yet the attack on the fridge continued.

Finally, several weeks later, Big Daddy and Granny Pug were up really, really early and caught the culprit red handed.

Suzie lay in the middle of the kitchen floor, surrounded by various meats, cheeses and anything else she could pull out of the fridge. My parents watched in amazement as she used the snout of her beagle/blue tick, hound dog nose to pry open the fridge, then slowly ease out what ever she desired or could reach.

My father felt vindicated. My mother felt relief. Suzie felt really, really full.

And so that is how an old dying dog taught us all a lesson and learned new trick.

Its also the story of how the fridge got a lock.