Great Dog Stories (14 page)

Finally, I decided that I had been afraid long enough. It was time to meet this beast and see if my imagination was bigger than the dog himself. I wrapped up some homemade cookies and walked over.

Jenna, the wife, came driving home just as I arrived. We met at the front door and I gave her the cookies and asked to meet her dog. She wanted to know which one. So now I found out there were two beasts living next door to me! I said I’d like to meet them both. She led me to the backyard and there, behind a fence, were the beasts—not Scary Larry, but Buddy and Belle. Belle was a beautiful white Lab. She was as sweet as could be, and I would have liked to go behind the fence and pet her. But the other beast, Buddy the Dalmatian, didn’t give me quite as warm a welcome as Belle did. He growled and barked and showed his teeth—but Jenna assured me that he would not attack. I talked to both of them and Buddy settled down a bit. Maybe next time I’ll go behind the fence and get to know them better. I do feel confident that one day soon we will all be friends.

Scary Larry the monster dog wasn’t real. He was a figment of my fears. He didn’t live anywhere but in my head. Now I have a confession to make. Many years ago I gave a young schoolboy a “Scary Larry” type of fright by pretending to be a monster myself.

I was 19 years old and traveling with a professional Christian music group. We were touring one of England’s many castles. It was more in ruins than many of the others. I loved standing away from the group, pretending I was royalty and was in the market for a castle to buy.

It was a cool day and I was wearing a dark brown coat with white fur on the collar and cuffs. My tour group went ahead of me as I stayed behind to check out the kitchen. It had a huge cave-like oven big enough to hold several people. It was dark in the castle and even darker in the oven. I heard a group of schoolchildren coming and decided to have some fun. I crawled way into the back of the oven, put my arms around my face, and sat quietly until the children arrived.

One curious little boy slowly walked to the face of the oven. I began to move my arms a bit. He alerted his teacher that something was in the oven. His teacher didn’t sound too concerned, probably assuming the boy’s imagination was running away with him. She called him over to her—but he crept closer to me. So I made a low growling noise. The boy screamed and took off. I squelched my giggles and sat quietly until they all left. It was ornery of me, but it sure was fun. I owe that little boy an apology. I’m sure he thought he was going to be a beast’s lunch that day.

Not all our fear monsters are pretend. Some of them are rooted in reality. Recently I have been dealing with the fear of dying. I’m not afraid of dying, really, because I know I will be in heaven with my Savior. I just don’t want to leave my husband or the rest of my family yet. This beast of fear is no idle worry. Three years ago I underwent a quadruple bypass, and not long ago I spent four days in the hospital with another heart problem. I had several major tests, including an angiogram. Steve stayed with me and our daughter Christy came to visit but couldn’t bear to watch me being taken by gurney to the examining room. The doctors found a blocked artery they’ve been able to treat with medication.

I believe the beast called Satan has been using my health concerns to growl at me, putting unnecessary fear in my life. But I don’t have to let him make this monster bigger than it is. God reminds me in His Word that He is in control. According to Psalm 139:16, “All the days ordained for me were written in [God’s] book before one of them came to be.” He knew the days of my life long before I was born. I am in His hands.

Scary Larry—that is, Buddy—is not going to eat Squitchey. He’s a good dog. He was only a beast of my imagination. Satan is very real, but my Savior is protecting me from him. God is in charge.

I am learning once again that monster fear is not from God. So I think I’ll go over and visit my new friends Buddy and Belle.

You have to do your own growing no
matter how tall your grandfather was.

A
BRAHAM
L
INCOLN

S
ome young friends of mine are in Scotland right now with their two small sons. Dan shared a marvelous story today. It was too windy for his three-year-old to walk down the hill from preschool. When he asked Jayden if he wanted Daddy to carry him a little, the child answered, “I want you to carry me a lot!”

When I first got my dog Munchie, he wanted me to stay with him a lot—as in, every single minute!

Munchie had been a beloved pet whose owner could no longer care for him. He was put in a shelter, and then rescued. For a while, he lived in a desert-area foster home. But it wasn’t meeting his needs, so I agreed to take him.

Munchie was brought to me in the evening. I already had three other dogs. Because he was new, and because I wasn’t too sure about his bathroom habits, I decided to keep him by himself in my office overnight. Munchie decided otherwise. He whined and whined until I gave in and let him join his new pack on my bed so I could get some sleep.

Next morning, I took him back to my office along with the rest of my pups. That was fine—until I went to leave the room. He launched a full-scale doggie protest, howling and scratching at the door. Clearly he’d lost one too many humans and didn’t want me to leave his presence. Talk about separation anxiety!

I realized Munchie needed to be weaned of this clinginess in short order or I’d feel like I had a four-legged Siamese twin. Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but I couldn’t live this way! Fortunately, I remembered what a trainer had once told me. He’d suggested that leaving a dog alone for brief periods and then returning could help condition the dog to be without me. I decided to go and come frequently from that office so Munchie would see that he wasn’t being abandoned. After doing this for a couple of days, he got the memo and calmed down.

If Munchie had spoken English and was capable of expressing his feelings, he probably would have rejected my game plan. He might not have felt at all ready to be “weaned.” But as his loving new dog mom, I trusted my choice over his. In short order, my decision was confirmed by his adjustment.

There was a point in my life when I, too, needed to be weaned of excessive dependence on a key person in my life. In my twenties, I accepted a job with an uncle’s nonprofit health organization. My task was to write a weekly column on health and wellness that we gave away to various newspapers. I was learning on my feet. But my dad was an experienced writer who had done extensive reading in the health arena. He became my go-to person. I would read my articles to him on the phone, and he would spot potential problems and flag them. I became extremely dependent on him for this assistance.

Finally, my dad decided that I needed to be “weaned.” He sensed that part of me resented my dependence on him. He thought I’d done my job long enough to have some decent judgment of my own. But like Munchie all those years later, I resisted.

Then Dad got cancer.

Suddenly, depending on Dad was no longer an option. But the weaning didn’t stop there. I had two colleagues I relied on as well. One left the organization. The other was in a freak accident that caused her to be unavailable to me for many weeks.

Humanly, I was howling and scratching at the door. But I had not been abandoned. I knew Jesus, and He was right there with me. Looking back, He was doing a work in me, growing and stretching me in ways I would not have chosen for myself. Ultimately, my dad passed away, but I kept writing and grew personally and professionally from the experience.

Jesus’s disciples also went through a difficult weaning process. They had gotten used to His physical presence. But the time had come for Him to go to the cross. He told them He wouldn’t be with them much longer and was going where they couldn’t come (John 13:33). They didn’t like this, especially Peter. Peter howled and scratched at the door. He asked his Lord, “Why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you” (John 13:37).

Jesus knew better. He knew Peter would deny Him. He also knew He wouldn’t abandon Peter. Peter wasn’t being forsaken; he was being refined and stretched and prepared for leadership.

Munchie is a happy, confident dog whose horizons have been greatly expanded by not needing to be joined at the hip to me. After Dad’s death, I went on to write animated TV shows and books like this one. And though Peter initially denied his Lord, he was restored and went on to preach at Pentecost and assume a key leadership role in the early church.

Our loving heavenly Father knows just when and how we need to be weaned. He knows just when we are ready to take the next step. And He promises to be right there with us in that process. So when God beckons you out of your comfort zone, don’t howl—embrace the new adventure!

Faith is to believe what you do not see;
the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

S
T
. A
UGUSTINE

W
hen Meaghan first started learning tae kwon do at the tender age of seven, her dad told her she could have the dog she yearned for—once she earned her black belt.

Meaghan stretched, kicked, and punched her way to puppy ownership. She went to a number of breeders, saw a lot of dogs, but Max the tiny Yorkie towered above all the rest.

They became inseparable friends. When Max was little she brought him to visit her dad for a weekend. She had a babysitting job that night and was gone for many hours. When she returned, she found Max curled up on her sweatshirt. Max had recognized Meaghan’s scent on the shirt and refused to move until she came back.

Max didn’t have separation anxiety issues when Meaghan popped out on short errands to the store or even when she spent the day at school. He knew she’d be back in a reasonable period of time. But after years of childhood bonding and daily routine, it came time for Meaghan to go off to college. She would be absent for much longer periods of time than a babysitting job or a day in high school—and Max always knew.

He would sit on the stair-step he always sat on and sadly watch as Meaghan put her bags by the front door. When Meaghan tried to say good-bye, Max would turn away. He couldn’t look at her. Meaghan finally had to take Max’s face in her hands to give him a hug and a kiss. A few minutes later, Meaghan’s mom would call to tell her that as soon as she left, Max broke from his perch and rushed to the window to watch her drive off. He’d stay at that window, staring out, long after the car was gone. Did he feel abandoned? Was he anxious and fearful that she might never return? Or was he simply blue because he knew she’d be away for many a moon?

We can’t be sure what dogs are thinking, but we know what people think. We’ve all felt sad when a loved one was going away for a long time, whether it was off to college a few hours from home or a job transfer to the far side of the world. The first time my wife and I dropped our three-year-old son off at preschool, we saw a look of disorientation, then tears trickling down his face as we “abandoned” him to strangers. We knew he felt unsure if we would ever come back to get him. Or if we did return, would it be weeks, months, even years? However, when we did return for him that afternoon and every subsequent day he was dropped off, he began to gain confidence we would come back soon—just as Max felt comfortable that Meaghan would come back soon from a short errand or a day in high school. Both my son and Max were building a certain spiritual muscle necessary to believe that the one leaving would return. The stronger the muscle, the stronger the belief. This muscle is called faith.