Held Hostage By My Dog

If you do not see my car parked in front of the par­son­age much any­more, it is because I have had to start hid­ing it. Lately, my dog has learned that if he stands in front of the driver’s side door long enough, I will take him some­where for a long walk. He is stub­born, but worse yet, he is cute. I am a sucker for cute. I cave right in. Some­times I scoop him up and put him in the back yard, then I feel guilty.
Some­times I tip­toe back inside the par­son­age so as not to wake him up. I have even been known to sneak the refrig­er­a­tor door open so he will not know what I am doing (most of the time I fail on this one…thus the dog is putting on weight…and so am I). It is amaz­ing how he con­trols the house by just being him­self. I have learned a lot from this.
One thing I have learned is that what­ever inno­cence is left in my life has a way of con­nect­ing to the inno­cence in nature. It is incred­i­bly pow­er­ful. The strength of this inner ideal can move moun­tains. Maybe I should start pay­ing atten­tion to that and stop work­ing out of the mind­sets of strat­egy and com­pe­tence. Maybe Jesus was right. It is bet­ter to be like lit­tle chil­dren. The puppy in us all needs to lead the way.
A pet can be a won­der­ful cat­a­lyst — a liai­son between the seren­ity of nature and our inner tur­moil. All sorts of stud­ies show the help­ful­ness of hav­ing a pet. Until I got the lit­tle ras­cal, I neglected the daily walks that I am sup­posed to take for my health. He has also helped me reduce my food intake when I cook. Two thirds through the meal, and he gets the rest of it.
He hears things I do not hear and is the best door­bell around (since the par­son­age does not have one). He hears foot­steps before the knock on the door. He is also good about screen­ing peo­ple. In addi­tion, his pres­ence is cheaper than hav­ing an alarm sys­tem.
Jesus was born in a manger — out with the ani­mals from which he would never lose con­nec­tion with his or their inno­cence. “Birds of the air” received hon­or­able men­tion in his most famous ser­mon. We will never know what Jesus might drive, but we know he chose an inno­cent young don­key as his sym­bol of grand entrance. No lim­ou­sine or Hum­mer for him appar­ently.
If you see me tak­ing my shoes off at the front door of the par­son­age, it is not because the floor has been freshly cleaned. It is because I pre­fer not to be held hostage by my dog.