Of Pringles and Prayers

The day started off a little rocky. I knew Ally wasn't feeling well last night and wouldn't be going to school today since she was running a fever. Unfortunately I couldn't tell how high the fever was because my thermometer battery was dead. In attempting to fix this problem some time ago I bought a new one but it turned out that the battery on that one was dead, as well. (It took me a while to figure that out. I took Ally's temp and it registered at about 95 degrees. This had me really concerned and I was feeding her hot soup and covering her in about five layers of covers and looking up all the symptoms of low body temp online. I took K's temp and it registered about 98 degrees so I just KNEW it wasn't the thermometer. The problem became clear about an hour later when K began throwing up and shaking with chills. What happened, as I'm sure you have figured out is that the thermometer was reading about three degrees low. So while Ally was fine, despite my attempts to "warm her up", it was K who needed cooling down. But I digress)
So this morning, with concerns of swine flu on my mind, I called the doctor's office and he was out until Tues. They told me the only other doctor in the office would not see her because she was a new patient. This ticked me off. I decided to take her to the urgent care, but this means and hour drive, plus the wait when we got there. Was she that sick? I debated. She looked fine, sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal. But she did say her head hurt and she had that fever.
Finally about one o'clock I suddenly had an insatiable urge for pringles to go with my tuna sandwich. I decided to go to the Qwik Check and get some of those new extreme pringles, dill pickle flavor, and no I'm not pregnant just for those that HAVE to ask. On the way out the door I decided to utilize my time alone and began to pray. I asked God to show me what to do. I just didn't know if she was sick enough for urgent care. So I got my pringles and decided I needed a new thermometer and the dollar store was just around the corner. I pulled into a parking spot and my phone rang. It was the local doctor's office wanting to know if anyone had ever called us back. I said "yes", and then we began a discussion as to whether I should drive Ally to the urgent care. She said she definitely would, and that was that. We hung up and I decided to take her. First though, that thermometer. I went in the store and my phone rang again. Again it was the doctor's office. "The doctor has decided to see you at two fifteen". I couldn't believe it. That was as clear an answer as any answer could be. And I wouldn't have to make the hour drive.
So we went to the doctor and she is fine. Wouldn't you know as soon as we got in there her headache disappeared and she showed no signs of fever. (I never did find that thermometer, they were all sold out. go figure.)
So I get home, with a big load off my mind. Now for the dog. I do not know what is wrong with my dog. It has been raining this week so he is spending a lot of time in the house. Apparently he does not appreciate this. He mopes around with those long ears and big brown eyes making everyone feel sorry for him. We have a pretty regular routine. I go downstairs and take him outside to the bathroom at about eight AM and then feed him breakfast. This has been our routine for a year.
The last three days, however, he just refuses to go. I take him out and he just stands there sniffing the air and chewing grass. I take him back in. An hour later I take him back out. Again the sniffing chewing routine. After a while this starts to get on your nerves. I don't want to spend all day outside waiting for the dog to do his business.
Yesterday he went about sixteen hours without going. Today it was twenty hours.
Finally, FINALLY he went, at about four in the afternoon. This just can't be good for him. And it irritates me. I constantly have to remind myself he is the equivalent of a two year old.
So having finally taken care of that, I decided that maybe my treadmill could be fixed. I was thinking maybe the reason it wouldn't go was that the belt was too tight. I rooted around for a while and found the correct size Allen wrench and sure enough. After it was loosened I was able to walk on it without it stopping. Immediately I ran upstairs and rooted through my closet and found my old running shoes, got dressed in appropriate work out clothes and jumped on and started running. Oh, how I have missed this. I had the music on really loud and a huge smile on my face. After a few minutes I remembered the hate part of this love/hate relationship I have with the treadmill. It didn't stop me though. Something about this machine just gets my blood pumping in a way the elliptical never did. I enjoy it. I enjoy the pain, the sweat, the ache in my knees, my pumping pulse, and the thumping rhythm of the music and my feet keeping pace.

So I'm sitting here at my computer contemplating answered prayers. Last night I watched the TV show "Deadliest Catch". I used to hate that show when it first came on but I find myself glued to the TV watching the crazy things that happen on those fishing boats. The episode was about the capsizing of the fishing vessel Katmai, which sank last October 900 miles off the coast of Alaska. There were eleven crewmen and only four of those survived in a life raft. The survivors were telling their stories. After seventeen hours on the raft which had overturned about fifty times in the night, one of the sailors completely gave up hope that they would survive. He got down on his knees and raised his arms to the sky and began to pray. At exactly that moment as the words formed on his lips, the coast guard helicopter came up over the horizon. Talk about timing! It doesn't get any better than that!
I've been thinking about that all day. God still answers prayer, folks, whether big ones or small ones. Even if he has to create a craving for a can of pringles to do it.

Oh Dear...

Well, he is not allowed on the couch anymore, that's for sure. I didn't realize how much work a dog is. It's like having a toddler around, again. I have to watch him every single second, and when I can't watch him, I have to put him behind a baby gate, in my kitchen. I realize now, why the walk is a MUST. He has been restricted in activity for the last few days, because I just had him neutered. He is easily bored, and I find him getting into trouble constantly. So far, besides the couch, we have had two stuffed animal casualties. One bunny slipper, which is now eyeless, (and looks really creepy), and one teddy bear, which has been reduced to seeing out of only one eye. I don't get mad at him, for this, (well, I did get pretty riled up about the couch, can you blame me?) because I know he thinks they are toys, I just keep him away from the girls' room. There would be serious trauma, if one of the "build a bears", or my oldest daughter's bday present from her boyfriend got eaten. (That almost happened last week, I grabbed the stuffed animal out of Sam's mouth, right as he was going for one of it's eyes).
I feel kind of sorry for Sam. There he was, doing his own thing, when out of the blue, somebody brings him into their house, and expects him to mind rules that he doesn't understand. All of a sudden, the nipping and ankle biting he has been doing all of his life, is no longer acceptable. He has to sit at the door, before being allowed to exit, and he cannot run ahead of his owner, when he goes out. He also has to sit, before he is allowed to eat his food, and he is not allowed to be under the table, while the family is eating. He has never had to have any kind of manners, and now he is stuck in the house with people who expect him to behave.
And the worst thing is, he is expected to go "number one" and "number two" outside. He is having a little trouble with "number two". I am having a little trouble being patient. Anybody with any helpful advice, feel free to comment. I could use all the help anyone has to offer.

Sam

I have never been a dog person, but that's all about to change. His name is Sam. He is about a year old. He is part beagle, part basset hound. He has been roaming the streets of the small town in Texas where I live for half of his life. I kept seeing him running down the street, sitting on the corner, and wondering where his family was. He didn't look like your typical runaway mutt. I even called the shelter once and reported him as a stray, when I saw him on the same corner two days in a row. It was pretty obvious he wasn't being taken care of. Sometime after I called the shelter, I saw him running down the street again. My husband and I were taking a walk and he started following us. We were standing in the street talking with the neighbor about who he might belong to, when a car pulled up and someone leaned out and called to him. Then she spoke in our direction. "I don't know who he belongs to, but we've been taking care of him."  With that she scooped "Roscoe" (Roscoe? didn't she mean "Flash"?  Roscoe was the sheriff. Flash was Roscoe's dog.) into the car and drove away.
I was relieved that he had a home. That didn't last long, because just a couple of days later I saw him again. He came up in the yard, and we petted him, and then he took off down the street. I told my neighbor, "If the people that own that dog don't take better care of him he is going to get run over." Less than an hour later, my thirteen year old son came running up to the house, yelling "MOM, MOM, THE DOG GOT RUN OVER!"  My heart in my throat, I grabbed my phone, and ran over. There was a gathering of neighbors around the dog. Nobody was really sure what to do, as it was Sunday, and the local vet's offices were all closed.  Fortunately, one of the neighbors standing there  had a telephone book in his hand, and I had my phone, so I started calling all the vets. Well, there are only three in my town, and only one answered the phone,. She informed me that she would not take the case unless someone could "take financial responsibility" for the dog. At the time, I had exactly seven dollars in my account, so I started talking with the neighbors about what could be done. At this point, the animal control officer drove up, and prepared to take the dog to be euthanized. Apparently, the people who ran over the dog had the courtesy to call the pound to pick it up, even though they didn't have the courtesy to stop when they ran over it. One of the families gathered around the dog volunteered to pay for the dog to go to the vet to save his life, so the officer then went on his way. My son covered the dog with his jacket, and hunted down some old sheets to transport him to the vet, and helped them load him in the car. Away they went, leaving us all wondering whether he would make it or not. I was pretty sure the dog was going to die. I didn't know which neighbor had taken him, so there was no one to ask how he was doing. About two weeks later, a young man who lives across the street came to the door, and left a message for my son. "Tell Matthew, that the dog is OK. He didn't even have any broken bones or anything, just some cuts and bruises." Once again, I was really relieved that the dog had found a good home.
Fast forward a couple of more weeks. I looked outside, and there was the dog. I didn't know where to take him, so I brought him inside, and he stayed with us for the day. Later on in the evening, I started looking for his owner. I came upon a house with a mom and dad and two kids, and they were just starting out to look for him. When "Wishbone"(wishbone? wishbone was a Jack Russell Terrier!!?) as they called him, saw them, he ran up to them, tongue lolling and tail wagging, I was glad to see that he had a happy home.
A couple of days later, he was back again. This time I wasted no time and took him home immediately. I was a little more unsure about his home, though, when I arrived. The lady that met me told me that she was having a hard time with him, because he kept getting out, and she couldn't keep chasing him down, with two toddlers to take care of.
The next time, he was still at our house when the dad came looking for him. We were standing on the porch, and he walked up, and asked us if we knew of a good home for him, as they were thinking of getting rid of him. I said, "yeah, sure, we would take him," but since they were still thinking about it, to talk it over with his wife, and let us know." Well, we never heard. I saw the dog again, running down the street, and loaded him up in my truck, and took him back. This time, the lady told me "I keep letting him out, and you keep bringing him back." I would have taken the dog home right then, but she didn't want us to take him while her son, who had become attached to the dog was there. She told me her husband would come by later that evening, alone, and bring him. While we were over there, my husband asked if he could see where the dog was getting out, and he went to that place, and fixed it for the lady.
We went home and waited for the dad to bring the dog by, but he never did. Two weeks went by. My husband saw her chasing the dog down the street one more time, and she was adamant that they had decided to keep the dog.
Meanwhile, thinking that WE were keeping the dog, I had gone out and bought a collar and some dog food, and had been busy dog proofing my home. When I found out she changed her mind (again) I kept all the stuff because I figured it was just a matter of time before they changed their minds (again).
So, the day before yesterday, my son comes home from school, and says "mom, I saw "Sam" (that's what we started calling him) at school. I think the pound came and got him because I looked a minute later, and he was gone, and they ALWAYS call the pound on stray dogs at school." I decided to give the family one more chance to do right by their dog, and had my son go over to their house, and tell them he thought the dog was in the pound. He came back indignant, and amazed. "They didn't seem to care! They were smiling!"
So I called the pound, and sure enough, he was there. I made arrangements to pick him up this morning. I asked the animal control officer if we could have him, if we picked him up, since the owners didn't seem to care too much, and he said "Yes".
I thought the animal shelter was in the back of the police station but I was in for a surprise. The officer asked me to follow him in my car. I started off, wondering where we were going. We drove out of the city limits, and down a bunch of curvy twisty country roads, and finally stopped at a ramshackle old barracks type building, surrounded by empty acreage. I could hear the dogs right away, and the smell was horrendous. I walked in and was greeted by the most dismal sight you could possibly imagine. Concrete kennels, all in a row, with two to four dogs in each. It was dark, and dank, and really smelly. You got the feeling when you walked in, that this was the last stop for these dogs. There were big dogs and little dogs, and one really aggressive dog that was shut up behind a solid metal door. There were triplet baby pit bulls, with big white blazes on their chests. They were adorable. I couldn't imagine how they came to be in this place. And right in the middle of this melee of dogs, was Sam. So I took him to the vet, and the groomer, and then I brought him home. He's mine. Welcome to the family, Sam.

Oh, and I named him Sam after Sam Rayburn. Sam Rayburn was from around here and was Speaker of the House, in the fifties. He did much for our county and is really loved here. He did much for the community. Sam seemed to be a community dog, so I deemed it appropriate to name him after the other Sam.

The "Spirit Whisperer"

One night a couple of years ago, while flipping through the TV channels, I came across a reality show called "The Dog Whisperer". I really wasn't all that interested, and I didn't own a dog and even though we have a thousand channels, there wasn't a thing on, so I decided to watch it. To my surprise it turned out to be quite an interesting show. The show featured dog owners who needed help getting their dog's behavior under control. The supposed "guru" of dogs, Cesar Millan, was supposed to be the answer to anything and everything dog related. I watched in fascination as an owner of a Basset Hound dragged her fifty pound dog up her driveway and into her house by the leash because he refused to come in. Now, when I say dragged, I mean the dog was actually laying down in the driveway, and refusing to move, and she was literally pulling him along the ground with all her might. Now I am not really a dog lover, so you would think that this would not be a show that would appeal to me, but I found myself watching as Cesar came for a consult and practically performed magic on this dog. His behavior was transformed within a few minutes, from resisting and non compliance, to doing exactly what his owner wanted him to do.
I found myself watching all of the episodes that came on in utter fascination. Sometimes it would be a dog that was obsessed with rocks, or light, or balls. Sometimes, it would be a dog that was obsessed with water. Some dogs were so aggressive, that they were going to be put down if Cesar couldn't help. Even the tiny dogs, like little Yorkies, had problems with terrible aggression. Cesar even said  that the dog with the worst aggression problem he had seen was a tiny little chihuahua named Bandit. These dogs all had problems, some small, some big, but the answer was always the same. Every time, he would come in  and say to the owners. "Are you walking the dog? Are you walking the dog? Are you walking the dog?" Over and over, and the answer was almost always the same. "Well, we don't have time, Well, we thought having a big yard was enough, well, we can't control him, so we keep him at home." Cesar would tell them that they must practice exercise, discipline, and then affection, in that order, in order for the dog to have a balanced life. That never taking the dog for a walk was like keeping him in a bubble all the time, which causes boredom, which leads to discipline problems. He would tell them that it was very important and necessary to walk the dog, so that excess energy could be drained, and that when the dog was tired he would be more easily trainable. After the walk over was when they would begin to address the dog's discipline problems, when the dog was more open to listening, teaching, and training.
I watched the show regularly for about six months and gleaned some interesting things, not just about dogs, but about life.
One Sunday morning I decided that the time had come for me to find a church in my new town. I had moved there about a year before and had put off looking, because I just can't stand "church shopping" as I call it. The church I was going to was actually NOT in my town, but was an hour away. I got there and attended the service, and was not really very comfortable. Something about the place just didn't feel right. BUT the Lord spoke to me there in the strangest way. We were reading in Galatians. I can't remember what they were reading, but my eye skipped down the page to Galatians 5:16. "But I say, walk and live in the Spirit, then you will not gratify the desires and cravings of the flesh." When I read that, all of a sudden in my head, I could hear Cesar, saying over and over "It's all about the walk. It's all about the walk." Immediately, my mind made the connection between walking with dogs, and walking with the Lord. Only of course with the Lord as the Master. Not to say that we are dogs, but think about it. When we allow the Lord to "walk" us, we stay right next to him. We don't run off and do whatever we want. We don't look off to the left or right, but keep our eyes ahead. We don't get distracted by other things along the way, and if we do, then he corrects us. In other words, the walk is where it's at. He takes us where HE wants to go, and along the way, through exercise, discipline, and love, (not necessarily in that order) we learn to trust Him. WOW! All of this came to me in a millisecond, sitting there in that church.
The next week I decided to go to a church down the road from my house. I didn't hold out much hope that it would be "the one" because after all, I reasoned, what are the chances of a really good church in my little tiny town of 9,900. That very reasoning was the reason I hadn't gone there before. I knew about this church, I thought about going there, but I talked myself out of it every time.
Well, the Lord set me back on my heels the very first time I went in there and I was ashamed of myself for selling the Lord so short. The place was rocking. The choir was rocking. I mean, they were really rocking. They were all moving in unison to the music from side to side, with their hands raised in praise. It was different and refreshing. I loved it. To my shock, the pastor opened his sermon with Galatians 5:17! The same chapter I had read the previous week, very next verse! "For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the Holy Spirit, and the desires of the Holy Spirit are opposed to the flesh; For these are antagonistic to each other, so that you are not free, but are prevented from doing what you desire to do." The pastor began to describe the "walk' in the Spirit, as being a tug of war, between the flesh and Spirit. I could totally see myself, in my mind, on a leash, (in a dog perspective) tugging away from the Lord, with my fleshly desires, and He, working with me to get me to submit and walk by his side in a calm and peaceful way.
In a funny way, this knowledge also bled over into my home life. I have three children, and as the world's weeniest mother when it comes to discipline, they are all out of control. I didn't want to be a meanie, and so that's how I became the "weenie". I began to see that love had nothing to do with it. The love is there, but love without discipline is not complete. They aren't balanced. And if I'm not disciplining them as I should, then neither am I, and we are all thrown off-kilter. I love how the Lord can use something as simple and unorthodox as a TV show about dogs to teach me more about myself, But I guess if He can make a donkey talk...anything is possible.

In the end, some of these dogs, were even able to graduate to walking without a leash. At that point, it wasn't about training anymore, it was about companionship.
It became about just enjoying time together. There was total trust that the dog wouldn't run away, and just as much trust that the master knew where they were going.
Truly, if we could get to that point in our relationship with God, wouldn't that be the ultimate definition of "Walking in the Spirit"?