Let Playing Dogs Play

It was January of 2006 when Julie the Lab joined our family, thanks to the relentless begging of my two youngest children Brad and Meghann. They had dragged me to the animal shelter to see her a couple of times, and I said no to her coming home with us more than once because we already had two aging dogs. But they begged and begged and begged, promised they would take care of her and pay her vet bills, and Meghann even coughed up the cash to pay her adoption fee. So, Julie entered our world ... and she entered with a huge bang. The first night she was here, two things happened ... Brad discovered she could do a bunch of tricks and catch a Frisbee in her mouth, and our big dog Ali hated her with a vengeance. Brad wouldn't give up, however, and eventually, Ali and Julie learned to coexist ... I don't think Ali ever really liked Julie, but at least she stopped trying to rip her head off. It didn't take long at all for Julie to become Brad's dog; in fact, she quickly went from liking him to adoring him. She would sleep on top of him, follow him everywhere and play with him until they were both exhausted. But when Brad went to college, Julie couldn't go and stayed home with me. It took a while, but Julie finally became as loyal to me as she had been to Brad ... she's laying on the couch next to me as I type, her head on my lap and her paw cradling her buddy Ollie the wiener dog.

I'm not sure how old Julie is since she was a rescue dog, picked up in an open field by an animal control officer. The vet thought she was around two years old when we brought her home, which means she's probably approaching 9 years old. I've noticed a big difference in Julie over the last few months ... she sleeps a lot more than she used to, she gets disoriented at times, and she has some trouble getting up when she's laying down. After talking to our vet, he suggested that I begin giving her a couple of natural supplements, one for her joints and one for her brain function. She's been taking the pills for a little more than a month now, and within the last week, it's as if she's been drinking from the fountain of youth. She's much more alert and aware, and she wants to play again ... a lot. I've often said that I've never seen a dog who liked to play more than Julie ... she would literally play until she couldn't walk because she was so exhausted. It's too hot for her to play outside, so I've been sitting on my couch tossing a tennis ball for her inside the house. She runs down my little hallway and into the office to get the ball while Ollie chases behind her barking his crazy head off and thinking he's every bit as big as Julie. And ... most important of all ... watching them play together makes me smile.

Last night, I had thrown the ball for Julie for about a half-hour while I was texting back and forth with a friend from Tennessee. After I said goodnight to my friend, I lifted the ball in my hand after she placed it in my lap and said, "That's it, Jules ... go rest a while." Thank goodness I noticed the gleam in her eye as she prepared to lunge at me to try and grab the ball, and I quickly released it so that she didn't accidentally bite my hand. My instinct was to put my arms in front of my face to keep her paws from scratching me, but I didn't think about the fact that I had shorts on and that she might land on my legs. And that's exactly what she did ... one of her big paws raked across my thigh, leaving me with a deep, 3-inch long scratch that began bleeding even before I managed to stand up from the couch. After I assessed the damage and determined that I didn't need stitches, I immediately went into the bathroom and washed the cut with soap and water. And I yelped like a little kid when I did because it burned like fire ... no, seriously, it burned like fire. I covered it with some prescription ointment, wrestled the ball away from Julie and went to bed. I have issues with healing because of diabetes, especially when I get a cut, scrape or scratch and almost always end up having to take a round or two of antibiotics to heal the offending injury. So it's only natural that the true irrational thinking that now possesses my mind quickly caused me to convince myself that Julie undoubtedly had some horrible bacteria on her nail that was most assuredly going to invade my leg and do one of two things while I slept ... kill me or turn me into a zombie. Obviously since I'm typing this post, neither of those things happened ... yet.

On my left forearm, I have a long, thin scar that stretches from just below my elbow almost down to my wrist ... a scar from another deep scratch from Julie's paw inflicted in much the same way several years ago when we were visiting Matt and Becca (my weak-stomached son came dangerously close to fainting when the blood sprang forth on my arm, by the way). And this morning as I covered my newest doggie wound with ointment again, I said to Julie, "Well, big girl, I'm sure I'll have another scar from this one. But I still love you, old dog ... you didn't mean to hurt me ... I still love you." As Julie wagged her tail, I realized that I was right in the middle of another one of God's teaching moments. My heart has been wounded a lot over the last couple of years, and I've got some big scars ... scars that serve only as reminders of the pain that caused them. And at the same moment that thought entered my mind, my little wiener dog trotted into the bathroom, sat on top of my feet and turned his face up to look at me ... his face that is scarred from the abuse that he endured before he came to live with me and Julie. My eyes filled with tears as I reached down to pat his head ... "You don't know that you have scars, do you buddy? You are happy and healthy here, and you never think about the scars or the pain from before. You know you're loved, and that's all that matters, isn't it, Oliver boy? Knowing that you're loved makes those scars worth the journey it took to get here, little guy ... the love at the end is worth all the pain along the way. If you had never been hurt, you would have never come to be with me and Jules ... it took the hurt for you to get to the love, boy ... it took the hurt to get to the love."

Only God could take a dog scratch and turn it into a way for Him to speak to my soul and touch my heart ... only God can do something big like that, friends, only God.