Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog

When I was 16 years old, our beagle gave birth to a litter of puppies. Our blue tick hound dog (named Luna Tick) had sired them. There were three puppies in the litter, two boys and little girl. And they were adorable little hounds with their wrinkly excess skin and giant floppy ears. My sisters and I instantly fell in love with them.

They were just a few weeks old when the litter got very sick with Parvo. The two male puppies died almost immediately. Pretty soon the little girl was equally as sick, and we knew she would not live. It was one of the most heartbreaking moments of my youth. I remember sitting on the floor with my sisters holding that pitiful little creature while she convulsed and yelped in pain. My mother stayed up the entire night with the puppy. She bottle fed her medicine and kept the puppy hydrated throughout the night.

The next morning we awoke to more yelping. My mother was sitting on the couch. The puppy was in her lap and it was clear to us that she had improved greatly in the night. As we came into the living room one-by-one, the puppy wagged its little tale and stretched its front paws out. Her bottom arched into the air and my mom quickly sat her on the ground so she would not jump off the couch and injure herself. The puppy can over to each of us and looked us up and down as if to say, "WHAT WHERE YALL WORRIED ABOUT? YOU LOOK LIKE HELL. LETS PLAY."

That day baby sister named her Suzie, and she became our fourth sister.

Suzie has been through a lot. She was hit by car and underwent countless surgeries and when she recovered from that ordeal, she was much slower and arthritis prone. But she was still Suzie. Demanding, funny and loud. (Just click here to read about her badness.)

I'm 28 years old and that makes Suzie around 12. Last year we lost my husband's first real pet. His name was Martin and he was a 16-year-old Silkie terrier. Like Suzie, Martin was the fourth child in their family. He was always there and especially close to the youngest child. Losing Martin was like cutting off the family's arm. It was horribly painful and something they never fully get used to being without.

God, I wish you could have seen how much Martin loved to hate me. He took it to new levels. When Martin would stay with us, he insisted I feed him, hold him and comfort him – but all begrudgingly and only after he'd bitten me a couple of times. Martin and I had a bit of an abusive relationship. He was a smart dog and he knew I wanted him to love me, so he'd string me along and just when I thought YES, WE LOVE EACH OTHER, he'd turn and bite me. What a glorious little shit! I miss the little booger so much Even now, a year later, sometimes I find myself still crying over Martin.

Because I watched my husband and his siblings go through the loss of Martin, I am especially cognoscente of the affect Suzie's death will have on my family. She's starting to show major signs of her age. She's developed breast cancer, and because she has trouble breathing, they can't put her under to remove the tumor. So poor Suzie wears a sports bra to hold up the softball size tumor that hangs between her back legs like an utter.

Are you following me, people? Our family dog – an indoor hound – wears a bra to support her heaving, cancerous bosom. You can't make this shit up.

God bless her though, Suzie still recognizes me instantly when I walk into my parent's home, even though I only come home two or three times a year. Suzie always lifts her achy body up off the floor and comes to greet me. I'm still her girl and she's still my sister, and it's become increasingly hard to watch my friend fade away.

But Suze isn't exactly slipping gracefully into that good night. No sirree.

Suzie has some pep left in her step and she manages to do thing that still amaze me.

One of my favorite memories of Suzie, happened about three years ago. Suze was already aged and starting to get decrepit. She couldn't walk up the steps without assistance. It was the weekend of my wedding and my friend Tabatha was staying with me the night before. There had been a party and I had consumed way too many drinks than the bride should have before her big day. We fell into bed in my sister's room at about 2 a.m. I was sleeping on her twin-sized bed and Tab was on the air mattress on the floor.

I can't recall getting undressed or taking off makeup, so it's no real surprise that when I awoke I was pants-less and still in my shirt from the night before. Oddly, I was still wearing one shoe and my engagement ring was on the wrong hand. I can remember looking down at my feet then at my right hand and thinking, "REALLY? How the fuck did that happen?" Then I laughed at myself silently. I rolled over to check on Tabby, and I was pretty sure no matter what I found wouldn't be as strange as my own condition.

I was wrong.

Tab was stretched out on her stomach. There wasn't a sheet to be found on the air mattress. Tab was still sound asleep and her head was cocked to one side and resting on her arm. She was only wearing her panties. Nothing else. "Huh, so I didn't take enough off and she took too much. What a pair we make," I thought.

That's when Suzie caught my eye. Somehow Suzie had broken into our room during the night. She had come on in and made herself at home with Tab on the air mattress. In fact, Suzie was stretched out and was taking up more space than Tab on the inflated bed. The odd couple seemed to be spooning. That's when I lost it. I had been so tired and stressed over the whole wedding ordeal, and seeing my dear friend snuggled up, seminude to my childhood pet was too much. I burst into gasps of laughter and tears. All my tension came out in that moment, the first thing I saw on my wedding day.

After several minutes of my hysterics both Suzie and Tab raised their heads at the same time and stared at me. For a second I thought they might come to hug me or laugh too, instead they looked at each other like WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? Then they laid back down simultaneously as Tab said, "Go back to sleep. You have another hour until we have to get up."

So I lay back down and I didn't even take my other shoe off. When Tab woke me up an hour later she was wearing her nightshirt and Suzie was nowhere to be found. She pulled off my remaining shoe and sock and shook her head at me like she'd never seen such a monstrous mess in her life. Then she put in the bathtub and I stayed there until someone told me to get out. When I came into the hallway drying my hair with a towel, I found Suzie laying there waiting for me. Her eyes were bright and shiny and she started kissing me. It was like her way of saying, "YAY! SOMEONE IS MARRYING YOU AND I ACTUALLY APPROVE. HERE, LET ME WALK YOU OUT."

So I got dressed, prettied up and married. And even though it wasn't the perfect day, its memories like that of Suze that makes it so special to me.