Saturday, January 4, 2014

JUST A FEW KIBBLES SHORT OF A BOWLFUL

Tanna, our rescue dog is getting fatter. Even though I know that all I have to do is shake a few kibbles out of her measuring cup when I feed her, it is hard to do this. If I am faithful, over the next few months, she will gradually lose the pounds until she has her svelte doggy figure back again. I know this works for dogs; it is logical that it should work for me too.

I did this doggy diet before with my big dog Max. I had to be very careful to only give him his normal measured food every day. He tended toward chubby if we let him get away with any snacking. This was probably because Max had some... starvation issues? From his childhood.

Some years ago, I wanted a dog. I've actually always wanted a German Shepherd because I love the breed--the way they look and their intelligence. I started praying for God to help us find the right dog, but my mind was saying, "German Shepherd, please." The summer of 2001, my husband Gary was out in the yard and he saw a dingy gray/brown skulking animal hiding behind the ferns at the bottom of our yard. It looked like a coyote, but coyotes are usually shy of people, so he assumed it was a sick one if it was in the yard in broad daylight. It could have rabies. He didn't want a sick coyote to bite our dog Shela, so he picked up a stick to try to chase it off.

Standing on the bank with the stick in hand, he saw a tail wag from behind the rhododendron bush, so he knew there was a dog hiding instead. Gary called out, “come here, c'mon fella.” And our future in the form of Max came to him squirming and wagging wildly with joy at the sound of human kindness.

I opened my front door to see Gary standing there with a sheepish look on his face and next to him, what looked like a huge rat-dog. We later figured that Max was likely half German Shepherd and half wolfhound, but starved and about six months old, huge head and paws and half his fur lost from starvation. He was absolutely infested with fleas and stink. He was the ugliest dog I had ever seen. He was so hungry though, we fed him and put him in the garage because it too late in the day to bathe him.

In our garage, he had projectile diarrhea. Many of the things in the garage that were not covered in stink, he broke in his panic and fear.

We TRIED SO HARD to find another home for that dog, but we couldn't discover where he came from or where he should go. His fur slowly grew back. We came to appreciate his intelligence but mostly his loyalty and his gentle spirit. He became truly beautiful. One time, he saved my husband Gary from a pit-bull attack and got bitten badly himself. He was a once-in-a-lifetime dog for me. I have never loved a dog that much, and likely never will again. I finally became grateful for him, but it took a while. 


Three reminders for the day: #1. Don't hold so tightly to your plans that you don't allow God's surprise blessings (sometimes in disguise) to get in.
#2. If you want to gradually lose a bit of weight, you just have to cut out a few kibbles a day—but you have to faithfully do it most every day.
#3. Hard childhood events can mess up how you eat when you are a grown up. You should continue on the journey to figure out the how and why of that particular brain short-circuit. Work to figure out where and how those old ghosts are affecting you in order to further the healing.

Bless you.



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