My wife and I consider ourselves true
animal lovers. We have five dogs, three of whom we generally share a
bed with every night. A good example of our love for our dogs is
when I spend an evening in the office writing and then I decide to go
to bed and there’s not any room for me to lay down.
I have to wake the wife up and tell her
to take her glasses off, turn over, move over or turn around straight
on the bed, tell one of the little dogs to move over, get the big dog
to the foot instead of the middle of the bed. Then and only then I
can lay down and fight for cover until I’m asleep.
It’s not that way every night but
every once in a while. You know what it’s like to try to get an
eighty pound dog to move over much less to get cover out from under
her when she’s asleep?
Then there’s our other dogs, those
two that stay outside. When it’s real hot outside my wife may let
them come into the mudroom and lay down for the afternoon to cool
off. When its real cold outside in the wintertime and the
temperature gets at freezing or below we’ll let them in for the
night. They are good dogs, they love to play and they have a lot of
energy to burn.
One of them loves to, what we call
“roughhouse”, while the other one likes to play fetch. I can
throw a ball in the yard and one will go and fetch it while the other
tries to keep him from getting to it. Even though their character
and their looks are as different as night and day, they stay close by
each other. But because of their character they have gotten mad at
each other and I’ve had more than my fair share of breaking up
fights between them. I’ll keep them separated to give them time to
cool off and then by nightfall they’re both whining wanting the
other and all is good. People are shocked when we tell them they are
brothers born on the same day and came from the same litter. Since
they have been together since birth my wife and I both think it would
be hard on either of them if we had to separate them permanently.
One cold winter day I got up early to
let them out. One of them usually scratches on the door when he’s
ready to go out and the other just waits until we open it before he
runs out. Well on this particular day neither one of them wanted to
go out and I didn’t want them to stay in. I played with them and
petted them. I opened the door to let them out and they both sat down.
The sun was shining bright it was warming up and even though the
night had gotten below freezing, the day was looking beautiful. When
neither of them made a move for the door I would try my best to
coerce them out, they still didn’t move. I grabbed one by the
collar and he pulled against me. I nudged him out and by the time I
was going for the other he was coming back in. I grabbed the other
hoping one or the other would take the initiative and the other would
follow, but nothing from either one.
It was when I began to be a little more
forceful to get them out was when one of them growled at me showing
me his teeth. When he done that the other followed suit and did the
same thing. Naturally, I didn’t want to get bit by either one of
them, or both and I could have gotten real mean and ugly toward them
but I didn’t. I sat down on the step and gently called them both
over to me. I petted them, played with them a few minutes and left
them alone in the mudroom and a couple of hours later I checked on
them again to which they both wanted to go outside by then.
Every day I come in from work my dogs
are there and are happy to see me, and I am happy to see them. They
are a great stress reliever after a hard, aggravating day. They
certainly help to take my mind off anything that may have been
bothering me.
I often think about that day my dogs
almost turned on me. I thought about all those animals that are
living in abusive homes or in abusive situations. A dog’s
character is a lot like that of humans. They/We can only take so
much before they/we turn. Some may leave, some may stay and fight.
Either way it’s never good. In the end someone will wound up
getting hurt. And that’s the last thing I would want to do is to
hurt something that brings me so much joy each and every day or for
them to hurt me for that matter.
If we feel that way toward animals how
come we can’t feel that way toward others? People always say that
so-and-so hurt my feelings so I’m not going to have anything else
to do with them. Maybe they were having a bad day. Maybe you were
having a bad day. Maybe something was said out of context without
any intentions of hurting anyone. Dogs don’t have to stop and
think because they can’t talk, but we do. We should guard our
conversation. The bible tell us to let our ‘Yes’ be yes and our
‘No’s’ be no. (Matthew 5:37)
Sometime people are pushed too far, too
much. I have seen it way too many times in life and I’m sure you
have too of where someone had gotten fed up with someone else’s
antics. You can look it up everyday on Youtube or see it on
Facebook or some other media outlet of where someone was pushed just
a little too far. You hear it on the news. I have seen way too many
good, hardworking, honest people leave a company simply because their
buttons were pushed one too many times.
You and I both
have seen it where a spouse was pushed too much and then they
push back or up and leave and then the one who started it plays the
victim. That seems the norm for society today.
The bible told us this day was coming.
'Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness
for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and
sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and
prudent in their own sight!' (Isaiah 5:20, 21 KJV)
