i'm sorry Brad, i don't think I totally completely follow what your dog
tought you...  i'm trying to follow, but it's still seeming a little gray...
Sorry... hope I'm not being a neucence by having you explain... LOL!  Smile.


Chris.


----- Original Message -----
From: "BD" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 5:11 PM
Subject: What my dog told me


> Now before you think I'm totally cracked. Let me clarify my dog doesn't
> talk to me, she whines pretty good when however she wants a treat or
> couchtime, but I can assure you she does not talk. Nonetheless she showed
> me a great lesson within a fraction of a second this morning. Each night
my
> son would call the pup into his room to have her quote,  "sleep at Mike's
> house", as we so fondly call it when she sleeps in the room of someone.
For
> months on end he'd call her in there, and in the morning I'd wake Mike up,
> the pup would come flying out, wriggling her butt jingling her tags on her
> collar, and wanting to go outside to do what dogs do when they get up and
> want to go outside. Upon her return from that duty, she invariably would
go
> to the top of the basement stairs, turn around and look back as if to
> say... "I'm going down to sleep at Amber's house now, OK?", and then she
> turn and rumble down the stairs to not be seen from until my daughter
Amber
> would arise or perhaps even later. Now you and I both know the next best
> thing to a dog's bed is the kitchen. Our little pup, is constantly
> underfoot trying to sniff out secret droppings off the counter top, or any
> little fragment that she happened along. She stands guard better than a
> Mexican border control in search of any morsel. If at night she will give
> up lap time, a good petting or just about anything to get in the kitchen
if
> someone is in there rattling around. Why? It is instinctive to a dog to
> eat. I mean after all it isn't the taste of the food there because most
> things she swallows whole and never touches a taste bud on her tongue. It
> is her instinctive response to survival, to eat when you can what you can.
> If there is provision, if there is sustenance, if there is something that
> is an inherent need, she will discount anything else and pay attention to
> that instinct. This morning was an exception in which in a split second
not
> only did it recognize what she did, but god, not my pup, spoke to me a
life
> application of what my dog just showed me. As any other day, the pup came
> out the room, went outside and returned again, but as my wife was cooking
> eggs, with pans rattling and eggs sizzling, she walked right past the
> kitchen, went to the top of the stairs and without missing a beat rumbled
> down the stairs for her early morning nap. It occurred to me how that
> ingrained habit of waking up, going out, coming in, and going down stairs
> was so engrained in her, that she allowed it to subvert an instinctive
> behavior of eating food. What seems to be extremely important to her was
> blinded by a simple habit which stopped her from doing what is inherently
> her duty of survival. It occurred to me how we can fall into that trap as
> well, to have daily habits which we do, that make it impossible to
consider
> what we ought do. We can become so programmed to a habit, a thought
pattern
> that we not only fail to consider an alternative to our time or path, that
> we subvert what we are destined journey. Habitual behaviors are good, if
> pointed towards a goal worth meeting, such as a habit of a morning Bible
> reading, but some habits are just habits we've picked up without realizing
> it even and can rob us of time, resources, or money even. The first part
of
> this lesson is complete, recognizing the benefit of the lesson, the next
> lesson for me is now prayerfully applying that knowledge, that little
> lesson God showed me through my pup, and how it applies to my life
> currently. Are you caught up in a habit which might pull you further from

> your destined journey? Have you taken a look at your daily life to see if
> perhaps you too haven't entered into a routine which you do because you've
> always done it that way, or spent that time doing this or that? I'm sure
> yawl have heard the old joke of the mother and daughter in the kitchen
> cooking ham? No? Well I'll tell it then won't I. lol. Two women are
> preparing a ham dinner. One lady grabs the ham and whacks off three inches
> of one end and tosses it out and slips the ham in the pan and starts to
> prepare it for cooking. The other lady says... "Why do you always do
that?"
> "Do what?" the first lady said. "Toss away the end of the ham like that,
> that is perfectly good ham.". The first lady defends her action by
> explaining that her mother had always done this from her earliest
childhood
> recollection, and that is was undoubtedly to cut off the dry end of the
> ham. That she has always done this and it is just what you do when cooking
> ham. Little did the lady know or realize, that the reason her mother had
> always cut off the end of the ham was that her pan was three inches
shorter
> than the ham and needed to cut if off to get it to fit. Sometimes we do
> similar and miss a greater opportunity or facet of our journey by failing
> to  recognize those habits which draw us further away.
>
> Brad
>