Fridge gives pooch the chills

I received an astonishing outpouring of advice, sympathy and amateur veterinary diagnosis after writing about my ultra-loud and ultra-needy cat, so I thought I would solicit some free advice about another member or our animal family, our psychotic border collie, Jack.

The problem: Jack is deathly afraid of our refrigerator. The dog has Canine Kenmore Syndrome.

First, however, I should share some of the amateur diagnoses people offered in an attempt to explain why our 18-year-old cat, Boz, wanders around the house bellowing like a foghorn and squawking like a parrot.

According to readers, this cat is either:

Deaf.

Arthritic.

In kidney failure.

Starved for affection.

Blind.

Suffering from diabetes.

Suffering from thyroid deficiencies.

In need of cat psychiatry.

Many readers suggested that we simply take the cat to a vet and have him looked at. I tried to take this in the spirit it was offered, as helpful advice, but I was a bit stung by the implication that we had never done so.

Of course, we have taken the cat to the vet. Yes, tests have been conducted.

The verdict: The cat is old. Really, really old.

He may well be deaf. What are we supposed to do, get him a kitty hearing aid? No, we’re just going to let him sit on our laps and enjoy his golden years in his own high-decibel manner. Although we might get ourselves some earplugs.

Now, about this dog, Jack (nickname: Bonzo, description: bonzo).

For some reason, during evenings and nights, this dog can’t walk past our refrigerator. He wants desperately to walk past the kitchen to join us in the family room, where we are reading, but there’s some kind of Invisible Dog Fence, right there at the refrigerator line.

He creeps up to the spot in the hallway next to the refrigerator. He stretches out a tentative paw. He whimpers. He pulls his paw back. He dances around nervously. He backs up about 10 feet. He screws up his courage, lowers his head and starts boldly forward, intending to work up a head of steam. He’s gonna blast right through that evil fridge barrier.

And then … he skids to a panic stop. He scampers backward, claws scraping on the Pergo flooring. Then he dances and whimpers some more and looks at us with big sad eyes. Some nights, he stays there for hours, just on the other side of the refrigerator, staring pitifully at us.

A few times, I have picked up this big 45-pound lug of a dog and carried him into the family room. However, I have stopped doing that because it seems to terrify him even more. He panics at the fridge line and tries to jump free.

Instead, we have taken to providing positive verbal encouragement. So, if you happen to have implanted a secret Web cam in my hallway, you could have enjoyed this scene last night: My wife Carol and I, in our PJs, down on all fours in the family room, wagging our heads encouragingly, cooing, “You can do it, Jack! Be a brave boy! Be a good boy! Don’t mind that nasty refrigerator! Good dog! Bad refrigerator!”

It usually works, although, it takes the dog about 13 false starts to finally scramble his way past that fridge. You’ve never seen a happier dog, though, once he bursts into that family room. You’d think he just won first place in the Westminster Kennel Club.

Adding to the mystery of his phobia:

“We have a new fridge, but he did the same thing with the old fridge.

“It almost always happens during the evening and at night. During the day, he waltzes past that refrigerator like it’s not even there.

“We once unplugged the refrigerator for an evening, thinking it was the noise. He was still scared of it.

“He will go entire weeks forgetting to be scared of the fridge. Then, just when we think he’s cured, he gets scared again.

So, as you can see, I need advice. Feel free to contact me with theories and cures. I did do some research on my own. I Googled “border collies” and “refrigerators” and found that other owners have issues, but not exactly the same kind.

Some border collies have figured out how to open refrigerators. Whenever these dogs feel like dinner, they just pop open the old Amana and help themselves. This is a big problem; people are having to padlock their refrigerators.

Reading this made me feel strangely better. Our dog has his problems, but he’ll never have that one.