Jul
22
Written by:
Rev. Ed Boon
7/22/2009 8:28 PM
Reflections on lessons learned from my little canine friend.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM MY LITTLE FRIEND
As most of you know I am one of those ‘dog crazy’ people. Going back to the time I was a baby I have had thus far eleven dogs. I’ve hiked with all of them. My folks had many stories of their infant son running off with his dog. I grew up in Nyack, NY, a suburb of New York City. One of mom’s favorite stories was of an incident that took place when I was only two. One day they couldn’t find me and set off an urgent search. Someone finally found me about a mile from home in my kiddy car heading, as I told them, for New York City, my faithful Fox Terrier Dixie trotting along side of me.
Every dog I’ve had until the present one would follow me anywhere I went. Once back in the 60’s I was hiking in the Catskills. When we reached the top of the mountain I threw off my pack and for fun started climbing down a ledge. All was going well until I looked up there was my dog Skipper all four paws in one hand hold following me down the cliff. As you can imagine I got out of there as quickly as I could. My Airedale Duffy once followed me up a near vertical fire tower ladder…and back down again.
My present dog and hiking partner is a little twenty pound Welsh Terrier named Lauky. The Welsh Terrier was developed in Wales as a barn dog to kill the vermin. As a result, the Welshie is a very independent, hard headed breed, less inclined to obey orders than to figure things out for himself.
Little Lauky has indeed been a challenge. He is the only one of my eleven dogs that I have had to keep on a leash when hiking. It’s not that I haven’t tried, but it’s been a humbling experience. I’ve worked with him off lead around the house and have even tried him off lead on the trail. The first and only time I tried that we got off to a pretty good start. We went up a trail that was seldom used and he pretty well stayed with me. After an hour or so we came to an intersection of trails and he disappeared. Because he arrived there ahead of me, I had no idea which way he went. I took a guess that it might be straight ahead and continued on. Very quickly I came on two people and a dog who were heading the same way I was. They told me they hadn’t seen him. I realized that he had picked up the scent of the dog but had headed in the wrong direction, so I headed back after him. After a few minutes I met some folks coming up who told me they had tied him to a tree a little farther down the trail. Greatly relieved I headed on down and soon found a very unhappy, very lonely Welsh Terrier tied to a tree. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh, cry or scream.
Since that time I’ve kept him firmly attached to a leash when hiking. Nevertheless, about a year later he slipped loose from my hand and took off. Three and a half hours later I found him up on the top of the mountain playing with another dog and totally unconcerned by the separation. Because of that incident I now wear a separate belt to keep the leash permanently attached to me.
Lauky is an extremely athletic and energetic dog. He enjoys enormously our hikes. Most mornings when I come to get him up he’s a bit grumpy, but for some reason, every time I come for him dressed in my hiking clothes, even as early as four in the morning he jumps up and wants to go. Along the trail he loves the wonderful odors he encounters. He tries to dart here and there, but is of course, restricted by the leash. As we walk along I have often thought of those necessary restrictions and of the other dogs I have hiked with: my Airedale Duffy, my Poodle Bobby, my African Dog Milou, my Cocker Spaniel Skipper and even my Westie Heather. They all had the freedom to run here and there but they all kept tabs on me and made sure that where I went they went. Lauky because of his headstrong independent nature is forced to stay attached and has to trot along with me as we head up the trail. He enjoys it, but there is so much more he could be enjoying, so many more worlds to discover, if he would only agree to stay with me.
As I’ve walked along I’ve thought about all that. It’s occurred to me that whether as children, adolescents or adults, there is much that we miss in life because of our headstrong nature. We could be soaring to new heights. We could be probing new depths. We could be enjoying life as never before if only we would follow the Lord rather than heading in our own self determined direction. The more we walk with Him, the greater our freedom and the larger our universe.
The apostle Paul made reference to this when he wrote to the Galatians and said in the fourth chapter: “Now that you know God, why would you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?”
There is another thought that occurred to me in all of this. Many times we know we’ve blown it. We know that we’ve fallen far short of God’s will for us and perhaps we wonder if God could still love us. This I know; that as I ran headlong down the trail hoping to find my runaway Lauky, as I plodded up and up that mountain wondering if I ever would see him again, my heart was bursting. Never did I love him more. I’m reminded of Jesus words in Luke 15: “There is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away.” Oh yes, even in our failures, perhaps I should say ESPECIALLY in our failures God loves us. We need only to turn to him to know that love.
And one final thought. Having had ten dogs in a row that obeyed very well, it was very easy to be critical of others whose dogs weren’t so well behaved. There are, of course, incompetent dog owners. But what I’ve learned with my little friend is not to be so quickly critical of others; their dogs, their kids, whatever! Snap judgments are often ignorant judgments. Many years ago a well known church leader said to me: “I’m so glad I had my son and for all the difficulties he has caused, because if I hadn’t I would always have been critical of others who had problems, thinking that I had all the answers.
Thanks little guy. You’ve already taught me a lot and I’m sure you have many more lessons for me to learn.