Wednesday, February 26, 2014

My Puppy Is My Teacher: Introduction


I'm convinced of this: God is not dumb. He made babies and puppies so irresistibly cute that normally sane, independent, even hardened adults will find themselves touching enormous amounts of poop and losing uncomfortable amounts of sleep for these little creatures. If you haven't noticed by my obsessive daily posts- I have a new little white puppy. Well she's mostly white with just a touch of little spots on her left ear and a black lip underbite that gives her a cute pouty expression. Her name is Clementine, she's half Great Pyrenese and half Boxer. Clementine means "Mild" in French- and she certainly is a mild one... until... she's not!

I'd been thinking about getting a little companion for a few weeks. Spring and Summer is approaching and a few weeks before getting Clementine, I'd go to sleep imagining a dog and I running around in fields, going on hikes, cuddling, and walking to coffee shops to sit together in the sun and meet cute guys (what! I'm being honest!). I'd decided that my old excuses of being too busy, traveling too much and not wanting to deal with poop, pee and chewed shoes was not as strong as the case for getting a dog. 

So two Saturday's ago I went to the humane society with the intent of getting an older dog- one that had less of a chance of getting adopted, one that had gotten it's puppy wiggles and chews out and was ready to just nap calmly at my feet as I worked and come with me on outings.

That plan fell through when I realized the older dogs there seemed wild when I tried to play with them and too big to control. A puppy started to seem like a better option- one small enough to train while it wasn't already bigger and stronger than me. The first puppy I laid eyes on in the puppy room was calmly laying in her cage- a sweet little white fur ball. I picked her up and she let me hold her like a baby with her paws around my neck. The decision was made then, that I couldn't put her down because someone else would snatch this sweet thing up- so I walked straight to the front desk with her and signed the papers to take her home.

In the week and a half since she's been mine, my whole schedule and routine has changed. Having her is teaching me some pretty deep lessons and helping me glimpse the Father's heart in new ways. I can not imagine how having my own real baby would change my whole perspective if this little puppy is already changing me so much. Parents, I want to take a moment to applaud you! It must be a scary and wonderful thing to love something so much and yet have to sacrifice so much for that very love. To become so vulnerable- that now if your little one is not ok- you are not only not ok but pained to your very core. I guess God tied conception to acts of passion for a reason! Who could be so brave as to decide to take on having a baby if it weren't for the compulsion of passion?!

Anyway, I'm going to write about the lessons she's teaching me. Maybe every few days another lesson will reveal itself and I will jot it down to share with you. Plus this gives me more excuses to post pictures and videos of her doing nothing in particular at all- just being her cute self. (Even that touches my heart, how must God fawn over us for just being???)

PS. As I'm typing Clementine is asleep on the bed next to me breathing loudly and letting out the occasional horrible smelling fart... but I let her stay because she's so cute...yep... God has a great sense of humor.

More to come… stay tuned! (don't forget to subscribe)

The drive home from when I got 12 week old "Perly Mae" from the humane society...
I changed her name to Clementine- much more dignified.
Our first long "walk" consisted of me carrying her the whole way to the coffee shop (funny enough the coffee shop is called Fido) This is her letting a girl there hold her while I ordered.


Some people say "don't let your dog sleep with you!" well, I just don't see how you can't cuddle with something this cute in the room.


My "business meetings" now include Clementine who loves to be held like a baby. She's also a great way to talk to new people who can't help but come up and say hi to her. 

That face.

Huge paws, sweet black lips and a smattering of little freckles on her left ear.