Betty Betty Birddog is a Brittany Spaniel that we adopted 4 years ago, after our ten year old Lab, Chewy passed. I don’t even think it was a full week that Chewy was gone, before we rushed out to “replace” her. I knew we couldn’t really replace her, but I had no idea what we were really getting ourselves into with Betty. I can only say “No wonder she had been taken back to the pound, TWICE!”
They had warned us at the shelter that she had a habit of getting away from her human. I guess we didn’t listen very well, because the very next day after having her for a whole twenty-four hours, Eric had his first chasing down, cornering and tackling experience down the street. His shoulder hurt for weeks. She has probably slipped away, using all different M.O.’s at least 15 times in the years since she joined our family.
In these years, she has also peed on the carpet more times than I want to remember, eaten a whole loaf of high fiber bread off of the kitchen counter when we were gone one night, completely shredded a rain gutter looking for that elusive rat. One night she ate about $25.00 worth of Nutrisystem food, once again while we were gone. Needless to say, she slept alone that night. She's swallowed a fish hook with a piece of sausage on it at midnight, and after $1,000, and an abdominal surgery, she recovered from that. And, I think the most memorable antic was when she brought half a rabbit in through the pet door. Thank the Lord I caught her before she decided to have that meal on the living room furniture.
They had warned us at the shelter that she had a habit of getting away from her human. I guess we didn’t listen very well, because the very next day after having her for a whole twenty-four hours, Eric had his first chasing down, cornering and tackling experience down the street. His shoulder hurt for weeks. She has probably slipped away, using all different M.O.’s at least 15 times in the years since she joined our family.
In these years, she has also peed on the carpet more times than I want to remember, eaten a whole loaf of high fiber bread off of the kitchen counter when we were gone one night, completely shredded a rain gutter looking for that elusive rat. One night she ate about $25.00 worth of Nutrisystem food, once again while we were gone. Needless to say, she slept alone that night. She's swallowed a fish hook with a piece of sausage on it at midnight, and after $1,000, and an abdominal surgery, she recovered from that. And, I think the most memorable antic was when she brought half a rabbit in through the pet door. Thank the Lord I caught her before she decided to have that meal on the living room furniture.
I’ve learned something through having Betty Betty Birddog. I need to be able to forgive people as easily as I dole out forgiveness to the dog. I know, she is just a dog and she doesn’t know any better. People do, right? Maybe not, especially if they aren’t a Christian; or maybe they are. Christians make mistakes. We are all learning our whole lives. Every day, if we have our eyes open, God has something new to show us about love and forgiveness.
On the subject of forgiveness, Jesus said, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” Each time we forgive someone, we are obeying him. It seems we have to forgive some people a great deal of times, and that could be the case for our lifetime. That’s a huge amount of forgiveness that he requires of us. I’m still working on getting better with forgiving others and letting my grievances go. As for the dog, I think I’ve forgiven Betty Betty Birddog at least that many times.
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