Great Dog Stories (18 page)

Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.

A
FRICAN
P
ROVERB

T
here’s an old saying: “Live and learn.” Annie the dog didn’t get the memo—at least with respect to skunks. Thankfully, the results of her actions were more fragrant than fatal, but they still got her into lots of trouble.

Annie was my friend Martha’s smart and sassy border collie/cocker spaniel mix. Martha believes that the first time Annie got skunked, she thought she was approaching a big, fluffy black and white cat. Annie wasn’t pleased with the results. Ever after, she would go into hunter mode whenever she saw a skunk…and would inevitably get the worst of the encounter.

Way too often Annie went out in the yard to do her business, only to come in reeking from her failure to learn from past experiences. But perhaps her most intense skunk encounter happened on one never-to-be-forgotten Sunday morning.

Martha’s house had a crawl space beneath it. Screens at different locations provided access. Martha had seen a gardener fiddling with one of them, and warned him to be sure it was properly secured in place. On this morning, Martha had let Annie into the yard and was making coffee. She heard muffled barking and went to retrieve her dog. But Annie was gone. Momentarily, Martha wondered if there was a hole in the fence. Then she turned and saw a screen off one of the crawl space openings. Oops!

Martha looked through into the crawl space. She couldn’t see Annie, but she could hear her. Hurrying back inside, Martha went to the front bedroom. The muffled barking was clearer here, and she could smell skunk.

Martha rushed out her front door and pulled the screen off a second crawl space entrance. Annie had cornered a mama skunk and her babies. She would bark. They would spray. She would bark. They would spray. And on it went. Annie refused to see the black and white truth—she would not win this battle!

Martha started phoning for professional help, but wasn’t finding anyone who’d come out. About that time she got a call from her employer. Martha was a producer for NBC News. They informed her she needed to be on a plane for Hawaii that night to work on a story.

In desperation, Martha phoned a friend who occasionally did some doggie day care for her. This friend knew Annie well. She was also more petite than Martha and could do what Martha couldn’t—squeeze into that crawl space and drag Annie out.

Martha’s friend managed to retrieve a dirt-covered, reeking Annie from under the house. Even as Annie was being dragged to the friend’s car for cleanup and dog-sitting, she was straining at her leash to go back and keep giving those skunks “what-for.” Annie never did live and learn with respect to skunks. She chased them every chance she got for the rest of her life.

Failure to learn from getting skunked is not confined to canines. A certain biblical character had this failing too—in Technicolor. Ahab was King of Israel in the time of the Divided Kingdom. He married an evil pagan Baal worshipper named Jezebel, and began to worship Baal himself. Scripture tells us that Ahab “did more to arouse the anger of the L
ORD
, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him” (1 Kings 16:33).

In judgment for his own and his kingdom’s idolatry, God sent a drought proclaimed by the prophet Elijah. Three years later the drought ended in a contest between Elijah and—count ’em—450 prophets of Baal. It was a contest to see whose god would send down fire and consume an offering made on Mount Carmel. You could say that those prophets—and by extension, Ahab and Jezebel—got skunked. Their dry offering wasn’t touched by fire, while Elijah’s soaking wet sacrifice was totally consumed (1 Kings 18:22-39).

The point of that little exercise was to show Ahab and all Israel that God was God! Ahab didn’t get the memo. He didn’t turn from idolatry to God except very temporarily when he found himself in dire straits. Elijah, and God, gave him every chance not only to live and learn, but to learn and live by following the Lord. Sadly, he persisted in evil and kept getting “sprayed,” not by a skunk, but by the results of his own reeking actions—which included complicity in murder—until he and his infamous queen met their divinely decreed deaths.

If truth be told, we all have areas where we can be like Annie and Ahab. We can fight what our Master is trying to show us. We can persist in attitudes and actions that are getting us skunked. Jesus squeezed into the crawl space of death to drag us out, reeking with sin, and cleanse us—but we still have our skunk-chasing old natures to deal with. Thankfully, we also have God’s Spirit. He is calling us to follow Him in the sweet-smelling paths of righteousness. Will you learn and live?

God is indeed a jealous God–

He cannot bear to see

That we had rather not with Him

But with each other play.

E
MILY
D
ICKINSON

C
hris is a busy guy. He’s a physician who runs a department at a major Los Angeles hospital. He’s also a part-time screenwriter. He works out regularly, enjoys an active social life, and travels. And he has a dog named Luna that he loves very much. Luna loves him back—unconditionally. But she sits home alone for long periods of time, pining because her master is a busy guy!

At one point Chris, a twenty-first century male, sensitive to the needs of the opposite sex, felt pangs of guilt over leaving his girl Luna by herself. Since quitting his job to be Luna’s full-time companion was not an option, Chris decided to find Luna a four-legged friend.

Chris hit the animal shelter circuit with the determination of a recently single guy out on the prowl. It was exhausting. He had forgotten how difficult it was to find the right one. Too many dogs, too little time!

One day, a cute face caught Chris’s eye. It belonged to a male half-Chihuahua, half-Something Else. Normally, Chris didn’t go for Chihuahuas. But since this dog was a mix, maybe his reservations about the breed wouldn’t apply.

The dog wagged his tail when Chris gave him the eye, then bounced around like a pinball when Chris approached.
Rambunctious
was the first word that came to Chris’s mind. That could spell trouble—but it could also mean a fun, interesting, perky personality. So, after a few belly rubs and face licks, Chris impulsively decided that Comet was the Luna companion he’d been seeking.

As dog pals, Luna and Comet were fine. They kept each other company in the usual dog ways: romping, pouncing, and gnawing at each other. Luna seemed pleased to share her space with this new dog.

But she was
not
pleased to share her master.

When Chris came home, it would be an Olympic sprint to see who crossed the finish line to Chris first. If Comet got the jump on Luna and was first to greet Chris, Luna would bound up and muscle Comet out of the way. Once when Chris’s mom came for a visit, Comet tried to climb into her lap. Luna dashed over and bit Comet’s ear. Chris was appalled. He shook a disciplinary finger in Luna’s face and shouted, “Bad dog!” In the heat of the moment, Luna bit Chris’s hand and drew blood. Chris was shocked at this unheard-of act of violence and banished the offender into the backyard.

After Chris cooled down, he went outside and apologized to Luna. She was sorry too, licking Chris’s hand and face. It was then that Chris realized he loved Luna but only liked Comet. He decided he had to give Comet up for adoption. Luna was a jealous dog and would have no other dogs before her. That’s the way it was—and still is.

Chris put out the word, and amazingly, a nurse at work was looking for a small dog. Introductions were made. The nurse took Comet home to her family of three young boys and their dad. To this day, the nurse tells Chris they absolutely love this dog. He sleeps with the boys and is utterly adored and worshipped.

Chris had the best intentions when he brought a dog home to be Luna’s friend. But he discovered a trait in Luna he hadn’t seen before—that she is a jealous dog. In her canine heart-of-hearts she could not tolerate sharing the intimate loving bond she had developed with Chris.

Jealousy isn’t a trick Luna learned in school—it’s a complex emotional response. Humans get jealous too, and so does God. And though the jealousy we and our dogs feel is not motivated by the pure, holy love that God’s is, it can give us a tiny hint of what our Lord feels when we bring home other gods and place them on the altars of our hearts.

Check out Exodus 20:5 (
NLT
), “I, the L
ORD
your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.”

If God gave Luna the ability to speak, she’d tell Chris, “I, Luna your dog, am a jealous dog who will not tolerate your affection for any other dogs.”

It’s one thing to get nipped on the hand by a jealous mutt, but it’s an entirely different matter to anger a jealous God. Take a look at Deuteronomy 6:15 (
NLT
), “For the L
ORD
your God, who lives among you, is a jealous God. His anger will flare up against you, and he will wipe you from the face of the earth.”

Wow! While God may not wipe us off the face of the earth the next time we arouse His jealousy, we must do our best not to make the Lord jealous. And the best way to do this? “Love the L
ORD
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5).

God loved you first, with a love incredible beyond comprehension—so be very careful who or what you bring into your heart, the temple of the living God, the home of the Holy Spirit. Don’t let it get soiled and diminished by other gods—not just for His sake, but for yours!

Life is the soul’s nursery—
its training place for the destinies of eternity.

W
ILLIAM
M
AKEPEACE
T
HACKERAY

G
rowing up the youngest of five children, there was always something going on. Getting a dog was one of the wonderful memories. We bought our little Boston terrier from a family that went to our church. We picked him out before he was ready to leave his mom, so the wait to get him seemed endless.