old dog, new tricks

We have some kind of dumb ass dog, as some of you may know.  She will be 10 this year.  She is a complete nimrod who can barely turn a corner or walk across the kitchen without guidance, suffering from several strange dog neuroses.  And some nice people will say, oh she must be going blind--well tell that to the squirrels she can see from across the yard.  She has finally stopped trying to eat the baby (teenage now) chicks.  She runs out of the house and heads straight for the coop and barks and circles it like a shark until I have to bring her inside out of consideration for her elderly heart and my elderly neighbors.

My list of current grievances will continue:

She has figured out how to open the back door and come in the house.

She has figured out how to climb onto my white couch and sleep on it.  (thank the Lord for slipcovers)

She has figured out how to put her paws on the dining room table and take grocery bags off the table and eat the contents of those bags (hamburger buns) right before we had people over for dinner (hamburgers).

She has figured out how to open a sippy cup with her paws and drink out of it while holding it with said paws    .
But she also figured out when the girls left the back yard to walk to the side of the house to cut some roses off the climbing rose bush.  She was inside with me in the living room and lifted up her head and began to bark hysterically, getting more and more frantic until I heard and small knock on the  front door and there they were (leaving the backyard was Tallulah's idea, according to Annabelle--yeah, right).

And despite her fear of the hallway, she knows how to turn the living room corner and walk skittishly down it, push the door open with her nose and stand guard-- well lie guard, to be more accurate--by the foot of Annabelle's bed when there is a night time thunder storm.

Old dog, new tricks.