Now, I’m not Willie Morris, and my dog is not named Skip. But this week, we had an unusual Mississippi dog story unfold on the Lucius homestead.
Let me preface this dog story by saying that I was not a diehard dog lover until I gave birth to our youngest son, Chris. He literally came out of the womb noticing all animals, including dogs of all shapes and sizes. By the age of three, he was begging me to stop the car and care for any and all abandoned animals on the side of the road.
But I drew the line at possums, especially dead ones.
I will never forget the conversation that took place one day as my precious little boy cried out from his car seat. He was still not old enough to speak plainly, but he exclaimed:
“Wook, Momma! The wittle possum needs us. Stop and help him.”
I slowed for a look at the totally flattened Opossum, then sadly turned and informed my child, “Honey, the little possum is dead.”
“But we could still pway for him to get up and get well, Momma,” reasoned my faith-filled toddler,
“We could pray, Chris, but I think the little possum has been in Heaven for so long that he won’t want to come back.”
My sweet baby boy sadly accepted my answer, but I could tell he was not completely sure of my logic or my lack of compassion and faith. And that was only the beginning of countless similar conversations and rescue operations we shared over the years.
By the age of 12, Chris’s love of dogs was so strong that he was apt to come home any day of the week with strays, injured pups, and giveaways – and even spend his own hard-earned money on beloved coon-hunting dogs. People and animals just seemed to recognize and trust his inherent love for all living creatures. (It’s a whole other story, but he once attended a national coon dog show with friends and came back with two registered pups, even though he only had $40 in his pocket.)
Tso, obviously, there was no point in fighting his love, so we simply learned to love animals just as much as Chris. So, we were never surprised when he grew up and perpetuated his love of animals by occasionally gifting us dogs, whether we wanted them or not. Honestly, he had a knack for knowing just when we needed a precious pet to love and be loved by.
Which brings me to today, three years after Chris headed Home to Heaven to join all those animals he loved and cared for his whole life long.
Currently, my husband and I own the last living dog that Chris ever bought, raised, or somehow collected for us. Her name is Sister, and she is a 10-year-old American Bulldog, the runt of a litter born to Chris’s best bud, Samson, and our old bulldog, Daisy.
Raised with a house full of dogs, Sister is the only pet left in our home, and she is fully aware of that fact. In other words, she is spoiled rotten.
But what can I say? So am I.
Every morning of the work week, my husband makes a skillet of three biscuits, along with his morning plate of eggs. One biscuit is for him, one is for me, and the other is for Sister. He packs up his breakfast and leaves the other two heavily buttered biscuits on the stove, covered in a glass bowl, right beside my favorite jar of honey.
Naturally, it is my job to give Sister her biscuit. She waits expectantly for her biscuit breakfast and loves it! If the truth be known, she seems to think that my biscuit should belong to her as well.
So, fast forward to Tuesday morning.
I usually get up around 6 or 6:30, and I never sleep past 7 a.m. But Tuesday morning, I told my husband that I had not slept well at all, so I was going to roll over and sleep in a bit. He lovingly shut the door and headed out for work.
But Sister was perturbed. Evidently, she had slept just fine and was not concerned with my insomnia or my need for sleep. In fact, she was not having it.
She kept pacing back and forth in front of the closed bedroom door, with her huge toenails clicking unusually loud on our wooden floors. It was obvious that she intended for me to get up, and I knew exactly why.
She wanted her biscuit.
So much so, that her pacing grew louder and louder, as did her sighs. And just in case you have never heard a bulldog sigh, they are experts at it. When her efforts did not produce her desired results, she would plop down loudly on the office rug in the room located directly across from the bedroom door.
Then, she sighed loudly, made a big deal over getting up from the rug, and then, she repeated the pacing cycle over and over again. After 35 minutes, I gave up, gave in, and got out of bed.
Needless to say, as soon as I opened the door, she was instantly alert. She dropped something from her mouth and headed to the kitchen. But I did not follow. I stood there in absolute shock.
Our sweet, old, compliant, kind dog had literally pitched a full-blown, Southern-style hissy fit, and in the process, she had deliberately made a huge mess in the middle of my office.
I saw instantly that in the process, she had dumped out the small bathroom garbage can and scattered its contents as part of her pacing, pouting, hissy fit. Torn pieces of Kleenex, Q-tips, and empty toilet paper rolls were strewn everywhere. Worst of all, she chewed on that sticky, discarded toothpaste and made a sticky little mess on my rug.
I was absolutely speechless because Sister had never done anything like that in her 10 years of existence. Never! Neither had either of her parents. It literally took me a few minutes to gather my senses and even begin to clean up her mess.
In the meantime, Sister kept coming back into the room and nudging me toward the kitchen. Little Miss Bulldog was totally oblivious to my distress and had only one objective in mind: Her biscuit.
So, what else was a dog-loving momma supposed to do?
After a bigger sigh than that of the most stubborn bulldog in the world, I just dropped the gushing, mushy toothpaste tube, followed her to the kitchen, washed my hands, and fed her that biscuit.
She had won, and she knew it. Plus, she had taught me a much-needed lesson; I would never dare to deny her the beloved breakfast biscuit in a timely manner ever again. And I am almost certain that she was grinning widely as she gulped down every single bite.
I am also pretty sure that Chris Lucius and Willie Morris were up there grinning and sharing a good laugh about another Mississippi dog story.
