A New Appreciation For Dogs

I’ve never been much of a pet lover. Maybe it’s because I was too afraid to fall in love with them when I was little. Our first dog, Barney, ran away when we moved to the country. He simply couldn’t adjust to the country life and continuously made the four-mile trek back into the town of Zearing before we had to let him go. A year or two later, our coonhound, Trump, froze to death during a brutal Iowa blizzard. He was an interesting dog--he used to sleep on top of his doghouse outside, which reminded me of Snoopy. And he had that cool howl coonhounds make. My first real pet I took ownership of was Lucy—a black, adorable cocker spaniel we got from a breeder in Eagle Grove. I still remember the car ride back with the puppy, barely the size of a football, scared to death as it rode home with us in its little box, whimpering the whole way. But Lucy, like the next two dogs that followed her (Daisy and Doc), didn’t last very long. They all got ran over by cars and busses within a year or two. I tried my luck with a pet cow after that, but all he did was eat a bunch of corn, poop a lot, and continuously break out of his pen and chase my mom around the yard. You can read about him in one of my previous posts about Mr. T. The last dog I had when I was growing up was the best. “Maggie” was a yellow lab that never did any harm and lived a good long life, but she came along around the teenage years when cars, sports, and girls become the focal points in the lives of most young men. So you can see why I never got too attached to animals—they never stuck around very long.

My wife, on the other hand, has always been a dog-lover. She had a Schnauzer named Jenna for all of her childhood. So with her love of dogs, and my kids’ constant begging for one, I was only able to say no for so long. And, when you have a little girl that sits on your lap, bats her eyelashes at you and gives you the “puppy dog” eyes, it’s pretty much over. That happened two years ago, and we’ve been home to a dog named Jake ever since.

Now, I don’t always have the time to spend with Jake that I should, or even the room in my heart to love him properly--just too many irons in the fire. But a scenario happened the other day that really made me think. It had been a rough day at work with lots of problems and as soon as I got home, there was Jake anxiously waiting at the door for me like he always does. I wasn’t exactly excited to see him and kind of kicked him out of the way like I so often do. He proceeded to follow me into the bedroom and sit at my feet, even though I didn’t want him around at that moment, and my wife said, “You know Andrew, that dog just loves you no matter how you treat him.”

And that’s when it hit me. My dog’s relationship with me is so much like Christ’s. Sometimes I treat Him like dirt and don’t want Him around. Sometimes there’s just not enough time in my life for Him, and sometimes there’s not enough room in my heart to love Him the way He deserves. But regardless of all these things, He is always happy to see me and always loves me unconditionally. He’s always at my side, always anxious for my attention and affection. What a solid reminder to all of us. Maybe it’s time for us to sit at Jesus’ feet and love Him the way our dogs love us—wide eyed, ready to serve, with our tails wagging, loving Him with all our hearts-no matter what the circumstances in our lives are.

Andrew Gogerty