I have this dog...

No matter what you've done this far,

He's still chasing your broken heart,

He's never gonna leave you alone.

"Leave You Alone", Tenth Avenue North

I have this dog that lives with me.  I am always very careful to point out -- she lives with me, but I don't have a dog.  Puppy (I call her that even though she is 10 years old) and I are both victims of the same con, perpetrated by my youngest child.

At Christmas time, my daughter came home for a few days, bringing Puppy with her.  And Puppy has been here ever since.  Just recently I found out that my daughter adopted another dog, a 3 month old puppy from a shelter.  What??  Yep, I'm afraid that Puppy and I have been had.  I've texted my daughter, but she's ignoring me.  So here we sit, me and Puppy.  I'm stuck with her, and she's stuck with me.

I never wanted a dog.  But Puppy has lived with me the majority of her 10 furry years.  She joined our family in 2003 after my husband and I decided to give in to the pleading of our youngest, and give her the desire of her heart.  Earlier this year, my daughter, now finished with college, finally took Puppy to live at her house.  I was happy to have her gone.  Don't get me wrong, if you have to have a dog, Puppy is about as good as they get.  She's small, about 7 pounds.  She does not shed.  She never chews on things or destroys anything.  She didn't even do that when she was a puppy.  I can sit the groceries on the floor, and she will not bother them.  She's very submissive, very low maintenance.  She doesn't jump up on people, although that's pretty hard to execute when you are her size.  She's just a cute little white fluffball.  But I'm just not a dog person.  Never have been, never will be.  I don't enjoy sitting and petting her.  If she tries to lick me, I push her away.  I don't let her sleep on my bed because she bugs me.  I have no interest in walking her or playing with her.  And I am not a homebody.  I am on the run a lot, and I don't like being tied down by the obligation of having to go home and let the dog out.  I don't like that I can't go someplace overnight because I have this little canine responsibility that has to be taken care of.

Tonight I gave Puppy a both.  I HATE doing this, but she desperately needed it.  She has white hair that grows long, and it gets dirty, especially around her nose, mouth, and eyes, and other, well, parts....  Giving her a bath repulses me, for two reasons.  When she gets wet, she has a distinctive wet dog smell, and it reminds me of the smell of the feathers on the dirty, dead chickens my sister and I used to have to pluck growing up on the farm.  Not one of my favorite memories, to say the least.  And then the crusty stuff that forms in her fur around her eyes just plain grosses me out.  It literally makes me want to gag when I clean that stuff. It's stuck in her fur, and I have to cut it out, or scrape it out painstakingly with my fingernails.  Yuck! 

But still, I do this.  I'm not sure I can totally articulate why.  Partly it's me feeling a sense of duty, of needing to do the right thing.  It's also that I feel a certain compassion for this little dog.  She didn't ask for any of this.  Life just happened to her, and none of it is anything she can control.  I figure she deserves to be taken care of, like any other living thing.  Maybe I feel a certain kinship with her, being left behind in favor of a cute little puppy.

I began thinking that me giving Puppy a bath is a bit of a metaphor for the relationship God has with us.  The things we do to ourselves, and with our lives must really gross him out sometimes.  But He still picks us up, and cleans us up anyway.  Surely it makes Him want to gag at times, the messes He has to clean up in our lives.  But he never gives up.

From my heart,
Joni

(Update:  This was written some time ago.  You will be pleased to know that Puppy is now living the good life with my other dog-loving daughter and her husband, who happily pet her, let her lick them,  bathe her and love her!)