What I Hear You Saying Is . . .

I don't remember the context of this, but the girls and I were talking the other day about how we wish the dog could text us while we're out. However, we know exactly what he would be texting us:

    Where are you????

    When are you coming back??

    Come home!

    Come home!!

    Come hooooooooooooome!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, it would be interesting to hear what the dog would say if he could talk. I often give voice to what it looks like the dog is thinking:

    Walk? Did you say walk?

The adorable mutt

    Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! Walks are my favorite thing in the whole, big, wide, wide world!!!

    Are you really going to take me for a walk? Are you really? 

Really? 

REALLYYYYYYY???

Our dog is just so darn cute.

But it occurred to us that, if we could really hear what he is thinking, it would probably be something annoying. Like Stan, on “Dog with a Blog”. (You're not familiar with the Disney Channel series, “Dog with a Blog”? Consider yourself blessed.) Chances are, we look at Wheatly's overwhelming cuteness and attribute cute thoughts to him when he may very well be cussing us out or something. Maybe it's better that we don't really know what our pets are thinking so we can just assume they're thinking something that we like – then we like them better.

And wouldn't it be nice to be able to do this with people? To press the mute button so they can't talk, look at them, and assume that if they were talking, they'd be saying something nice that we agree with, so we can like them? But the fact is, I would probably see little disagreeable gestures or looks and jump to the assumption that I know that what they're thinking is mean and nasty and ungodly and deserving of contempt. So I can feel justified in not liking them.

I mean, I do that already. Don't you? I even hear the words that come out of their mouths and color them with the assumptions I've already made about the person.

When you think of it, it's entirely possible that our feelings about others have less to do with what kind of people they are and more to do with what kind of people we are. 

And good heavens . . . isn't THAT revealing.

The Stupidity of Crawling the Fence

A pastor we heard yesterday made an important observation about the Law, specifically the Ten Commandments. Note the words at the beginning of Exodus 20:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

This is what He says before He starts giving them the Law. "I am the Lord your God." Not "I will be the Lord your God once you get your act together and start following these laws," but "I'm your God now -- our relationship is already established. These laws don't create a relationship between us; they maintain that relationship and protect you."

You all know we got a dog in January. Wheatly. Cutest dog ever. Had there not already been a fence around our yard, we probably would have put one up after we brought him home. Not to make Wheatly our dog, but because Wheatly is our dog, and we want to keep it that way.

Say Wheatly got out of the confines of our fence somehow and ended up in the neighbors' yard. They may have called us to say, "Hey, we have your dog." We would not have responded by saying, "Oh, no, that can't be. If he's out of our yard, outside of our fence, he's not our dog. Any dog of ours would be inside of our fence."

No, inside or outside of our fence, we still claim him. He still belongs to us. The fence doesn't make him our dog. The fence allows us to take care of him, to protect him, and to enjoy him -- and allows him to enjoy us, which he does.

This is how the Law works that God gave his people. He didn't give it to us as part of a contract: you do your part by obeying all these commands, and I'll do my part by taking care of you. Our relationship is only intact when we both keep up the contract. Stop obeying the rules, and I'm no longer under obligation to consider you mine. The relationship will be cut off.

No, the relationship came first. The relationship came by His initiation, His invitation, and our acceptance. He loves us and claims us no matter what we do, because we are His and never stop being so. The fence -- the rules -- are not there to establish the relationship but to make the relationship work. To protect us and to keep us in a place where we can actually enjoy each other.

The fence-crawlers, those always looking for a gap where they can get to the other side of the rules . . . they would do much better to relax and realize the joy and peace of living in relationship with the Father. I am the Lord . . . your God. The world outside the fence ain't got nothin' on life with Him.

Jekyll and Hyde: More Mutt Adventures

Okay, I promise you all that this is not going to turn into a full-blown pet obsession blog. But I usually write about whatever's on my mind, and right now, my mind is pretty much over-run by this new dog of ours.

I showed you in my last post how this incredibly sweet, mellow, laid-back pooch tore up the wall by the laundry room door when we left him in there overnight. So, we decided he needed to be crated (I can't believe I let the pet store guy talk me out of that the first night -- follow your instincts!!). So, I picked up a crate the next day, and we spent some time during the day getting him used to it. He actually seemed quite comfortable there -- even chose to lay down and rest in there of his own accord.

But at bedtime, he paced in that crate and barked and whined hysterically. After a couple hours, hubby put the crate in the garage, where he continued to bark, but we were able to go to sleep. In the morning, he had torn the pad in the bottom of the crate to pieces.

So I threw that away and cleaned out the crate, and, because we had no other choice, we put him back in there for the hour of time between when hubby had to leave for work and I got home from driving the girls to school.

And here you see the result.

Yes, that's blood where he tried to chew his way out of the crate. He had also managed to move himself, crate and all, a few feet into the room and turn the crate on its side. But when I got him out, he hopped over to wag his tail at me and get a big drink of water, his usual cheerful, contented self.

We should have named this mutt Dr. Jekyll.

After sitting rather stunned for a few minutes and feeling quite discouraged and lost about what to do for this animal, I called a couple vets and got some prescriptions and some advice. Last night we put him in his NEW completely metal crate (no chewing his way out of this one) with a sedative and an Adaptil collar (which emits pheronomes like a nursing mother dog emits).

He barked for about an hour. Hubby put him back in the garage. He barked for another thirty minutes or so . . . and then quiet.

Blessed quiet!

This morning when the youngest got him out of his crate, he was calm and nothing was torn up. Here's hoping this is something of a breakthrough.

Because I don't know if my daughter could take another night of his terrible separation anxiety. He's her dog, and she cried last night listening to him. And I could sympathize. It sent me back to our days with a newborn . . . actually, the first few years, with both girls. I vividly remember sitting outside the door of my crying baby in her crib -- sleep-deprived and crying myself -- and praying, "God, do I go in? Do I stay here? I'm so tired! She's so tired! Five more minutes?  Ten minutes? What do I do? What do I do???"

Such a terrible burden to be responsible for the well-being of a helpless another. I have no illusions that the separation anxiety or bedtime battles with Wheatly are anywhere near over. (And this is why we resisted getting another dog for so long.)

But, as I said, here's hoping this is something of a breakthrough.

Adventures with Wheatly: The First 36 Hours

Ever since our beloved Ostertag died a couple years ago, the girls have been wanting another dog. So, now that our long-impending move is a done deal and we are somewhat settled, we took a trip to the Humane Society to see what we could see.

And look at what we found. Wheatly. A thirty-one pound terrier mix that the woman who runs the shelter found running around the area there on her way to work about a week ago. They estimate he's about two years old, based on his teeth. No tag, no microchip. The five day waiting period for an owner to claim him came and went. So after they fixed him Monday morning, we got to bring him home Monday evening and call him our own.

The adventure started while bringing him home. I don't know if it was the leftover grogginess from his surgery or what, but this boy does not seem to like car rides.  He shivered and whined the whole way -- and with traffic at rush hour, it was a long drive.  I felt so sorry for the poor guy.

Once home, he calmed down some. Ate a good amount of food (they said he hadn't eaten because of the surgery), drank a little, wandered around everywhere exploring. Did his business outside (and a little in the kitchen). Whined off and on still.  But he eventually just collapsed from exhaustion and fell asleep, so we put him in his bed in the laundry room.

About 12:45, I heard him yelp; I listened to see if he needed something, but he was quiet again, so I started to doze off. Until he yelped again 15 minutes later. And we spent a couple hours in that fun routine until he apparently lost interest and fell asleep.

Yesterday morning, he was a different puppy. Lively, energetic, still a bit of a whine in his voice. But the whine disappeared as the day went on. With one daughter home sick from school and me having a lot of computer work to get done, it was kind of lethargic around here, and he eventually chilled out and matched our lethargy. But he hardly left our sides, and by dinnertime, he was dancing with us, and we were seriously in love with this boy.

Hubby came home from his business trip about bedtime to meet the dog . . . and then it was time to start a bedtime routine. This is the part I had been dreading. We put his bed in the laundry room, put a treat in it to entice him (which he would have none of), and then closed the door and left him.  He whined. He pawed the door. And then he starting barking like a mad dog. "Well, it's good to hear that he can bark," hubby said.


And he whined and barked and on and on.  My youngest came down upset, and we assured her that he was okay, this is part of the process -- welcome to parenting. Eventually, hubby and I each took an Ambien and went to sleep.

Until the youngest woke us up at 2am. She heard a loud noise in the laundry room that scared her and she went to check on Wheatly. And here's what we found. Wow. I guess this mutt does not like to sleep alone. Who knew such a seemingly mellow dog had this kind of destruction in him?

So, he has his first vet appointment today, and we are getting a crate. Monday night, I was already thinking we needed a crate for him.  Time to follow my instinct.

But he's still so darn cute . . . !