Happy Birthday to an Old Dog!

Aunt Julie is on vacation, which means she's missing a Major Milestone back home. Trouble Elizabeth (remember, Julie has no girls, so had to grant the family surname to someone, even if he is a male dog) turns 16 today. Little Red, Julie's soon-to-be DIL, is dog-sitting while The Pop'r Queen is at the beach.

Julie picks up the Trouble Elizabeth tale: "We found him from an ad in the newspaper. There were lots of Springer Spaniel ads that week, and most were $350 or so. The ad for Trouble said $50. I called, to see if it was a typo. No. Why so cheap? Turns out the owner had 12 puppies to find homes for."

Trouble Eliz turned out to be a rabbit-chasing machine. "Almost every morning we’d let him out and he’d take off and not come back 'til he could hardly move, and the neighborhood was free of bunnies for another day," she remembers. "My kids were late many mornings for school because we were scouring the streets in our SUV, calling 'Trouble! Trouble!' and eventually 'Trouble Elizabeth! You get over here right this minute!' "

Julie and Uncle Lynn, The Pop'r King, came up with a great way to wake up their boys in the winter. "We had a habit of taking him outside to play and then letting him jump on the boys' beds to wake them up. Cold toes, cold nose…"

Trouble Elizabeth's alarm clock duties, however, were numbered. "One Sunday morning he jumped off the bed, but his leg got caught between the mattress and footboard, and snapped," Julie says. "Since we lived in a rural area, the local vet was a large animal vet, and his suggestion was to shoot him and get another dog! Good thing we lived near Madison and the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine! One day and $1,000 later, he was good as new!"

There are too many Trouble Elizabeth stories to tell here, "but needless to say, it was the best $50 we ever spent!" Aunt Julie declares. "He's an old doggy, but all we want is another 16 years. What a great dog!"

Like a lot of 112-year-old men, Trouble Elizabeth has become mostly an indoor doggy, and leads a pretty pampered life. His various ailments come and go; he has a "dribbling" problem, among others, and wears a Doggy Diaper. The Pop'rs Family calls him "Captain Underpants"!

Auntie J. says Trouble's aches and pains are pretty minor, though. "As long as he still barks at the mailman and wags his tail when we come home, we can cope!"