Bulldoggy

Stella has a whole bowl of food right next to her, and she ignores it, preferring the crumbs and single pieces that have fallen on the floor. A sense of desperation hangs around her hunt. She is afraid of missing the smallest remainder.

Snooting around, cleaning up microscopic food particles, is great practice for Stella’s smooshy nose. Bulldogs can always use extra nose work, but really, Stella, why are you snooting around in a corner for crumbs when the feast is over here – full, ready, and waiting?

I should have asked myself that very question long ago.

The fear of missing the smallest, backward chance. The fear of missing out. I have taken jobs that appeared out of nowhere and led to nowhere. I took them believing that nothing better was going to show up. I talked myself into believing that they were blessings. Strangely enough, in some ways, they were. They were stops along the way and I learned from every one of them. But if you’re not watchful, stopgaps can become permanent and you end up settling for less than what’s best.

Too often God has offered me a full bowl and I went snooting around for low level crumbs. I ignored His goodness, settling for less than He wanted me to enjoy, believing I was unworthy of what He was offering when He was the very One Who decided I was worthy. So much for not judging God.

Stella is wiser in this than I am. She snoots around for crumbs, but she always finishes the full meal, too.

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” Psalm 23:5 KJV

©H.J. Hill 2016 All Rights Reserved

Bulldog people know that bullies have issues with excessive heat, issues such as death. They are more susceptible even than other breeds and the definition of heat varies with them. I had gotten in the habit of taking Stella out on a walk when I got home from work, a way for both of us to relax.

Spring had grown old and the temperature was toying with 90 degrees F. Our walks were the only times that Stella was outside except for bathroom breaks.  She was a trooper and completed our short 3/10 of a mile circuit in fine order every day.

I kept my eye on the temperature and one afternoon it hit 92. We took our walk, the usual circuit. Stella panted with her wide grinning mouth open and her lolling tongue yoyoing up and down, all very normal, but when we reentered the air-conditioned house, she flopped belly down on the cool linoleum and kept panting rapidly. About 30 seconds later, she threw up water.

Oh, no, I thought, I’ve killed Stella.  And she’s not even my dog… technically. And it’s all because I think 92 degrees is not all that hot. Not for me, but it was for her. I ran into the kitchen, grabbed all the ice packs I could find, a bowl of cool water, and hand towels.

I plopped  beside the panting Stella and shoved the water under her muzzle. She lapped up as much as she thought she needed. Her tongue was not the dangerous purple that the friendly internet contributors said to watch out for, but I imagined that it was. I placed a wrapped cold pack on the back of her head and slowly, repeatedly, ran another one down the full length of her spine.

It took about 10 minutes. I don’t really know because I was not focused on the clock. Stella’s breathing evened out, the rapid panting slowed, and she finally stood up and walked to her bed – fine and like nothing had happened. I put the towels in the wash, replaced the ice packs in the freezer, collapsed on my chair, and thanked God and thanked God and thanked God.

My son considered the whole episode no serious matter in hindsight. He would have had he been there.

I felt stupid and incompetent. I had violated the rule I always followed as a parent. What is the need of the child? Stella can’t read a thermometer. She can’t prepare for bad weather. She doesn’t buy her own food. We do all those things. My limits are not the issue. Hers are.

The Lord does not push us beyond our limits. He is a good Father. But we are not always so wise. We push ourselves to accomplish whatever and drag others along faster than they can go, then wonder why they collapse under the pressure.

Go for walks. Invite others. But keep an eye on the temperature.

There is really not a whole lot of sense in asking dogs “Who made this mess?” since:

• We already know who made the mess,
• The dogs are not going to clean up the mess (unless it involves spilled food), and
• The dogs are likely to ask, “Mess? What mess?”

Stella is an expert at making a mess look like the natural progression of random items from one part of the house to another. She is a natural-born hoarder. It’s just that she, on occasion, hoards stuff that I would throw away or she takes stuff that she can’t possibly use. And she’s sneaky about it, like the day I went down the hall for a few minutes only to return and find that she had raided the cat’s litter box for a piece of cat poop. She had brought it to her favorite stashing place and was licking it. Yuck! Thank you, Stella. She put on her confused, disconcerted bulldog stare when I took it away. “Awwww.”

Before that incident, she had pilfered simple items like a bottle of nail polish, a pair of cheap scissors, the scoop for the cat litter…ah, now I see a connection.

I know, Stella, you’re a dog.  I have to remember that.

Asking the Lord who made whatever mess is bothering us at the moment is pretty useless, too, not because He doesn’t know, but because in many cases, we were likely involved in generating the mess. We may as well dig in and start cleaning it up even when we weren’t responsible for every piece of it.

We build our hoards, our piles of broken trinkets, our messes and then mistake them for treasure troves. It takes a revelation and our opened eyes to see the pile as a junk heap of garbage – grudges, resentments, bad attitudes, vengeful thoughts. But we own them, we argue; they are ours. They sneak up on us and we feel a keen sense of justice in keeping them close by. Still, the whole while we hoard them, they are useless, poisonous, cutting, filthy, and take up room in our lives that can be better used for whatever is wholesome. Just like Stella’s cat litter scoop, toxic nail polish, sharp scissors , and nasty cat poop. (Even the cat didn’t want that.)

“…whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8 KJV)

©H.J. Hill 2016 All Rights Reserved.

According to Cesar Millan, bulldogs are the “silent point of view”. Bulldogs ambush. They don’t bark warnings like other breeds. That’s the way they were bred to be. It’s the way they are. They are tenacious. A more negative word for them is stubborn. I have come to think of them as “bulldoggy”.

When Stella doesn’t want to move, she doesn’t. She seemed to be aware from the get-go that I can’t shift a 50 lb. lump of anything without mammoth physical effort on my part or without help from the 50 lb. lump. So she drops to the ground and lays her chin flat on top of her paws. It’s her way of saying “Nope” from her silent bulldoggy point of view.

Sometimes it is a recurring battle in the “War for Leash Control”. We each advance and retreat over the same ground in a cycle of small victories, small defeats, and small stalemates. She points her stubby nose in her direction of choice, strains at the leash, and sets her sturdy massive shoulders. Her whole body says, “Now who’s going to make me go a different way?”

The very picture of Gibraltar. Her ancestors would be proud.

The funny thing is that her stubbornness delays her own success. She wants that special ride but won’t go out in a sprinkle of rain to use the backyard facilities so we can leave. I wanted to make some padded, insulated paw protectors for when we walk rough paths so she could enjoy short trail hikes. All I needed Stella to do was to stand on a piece of paper for about 7 seconds while I traced around her foot. She couldn’t bring herself to comply. I waited. I finally found one paw in a flat position when she was laying down and I got a tracing. Just one.

That’s when I noticed yet another similarity between us and them. Pigheadedness is not restricted to bulldogs. Or pigs. Or horses. Or mules. Or humans.

Dear Lord, did you send us bulldogs to show us how stubborn and hard to work with we can be? All the big and little complaining, all the disobedience, all the fear, all the reluctance to do what we should do willingly, even when it’s for our own good?

Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. (Psalm32:9 New Living Translation)

And be not like Stella the Stubborn Bulldog who must be held by a strong hand on a leash else she pulls you down the road whithersoever she wishes to go.

© H.J.Hill 2016 All Rights Reserved.

Stella whelped 3 puppies, not as many as expected, but they were healthy little boogers. My son called in a dog midwife who was familiar with bulldog issues. I had never heard of such a thing. She came in the wee hours and stayed through the next afternoon. She massaged Stella and helped her through the process. It was not Stella’s first litter, but there is always concern.

Over the weeks of motherhood, Stella was the best dog mom ever. She did her job from the first moment above and beyond the call of duty. She fed them, spent every day and night with them, and, if they had to go to the vet, however briefly, she went nuts over the separation and worried for them until they came back home.

And bless her heart, she cleaned them – the yuckiest job ever. She never shirked the task. At least I had baby wipes and diapers to use for my offspring. All she had to use was…well, you know.

But when the puppies were weaned and her job was done, she knew it was done and, in her dog wisdom, she acted accordingly. She did not chase after them, though they still chased after her. She did not let them go back to nursing. That was over. Baby puppyhood had ended and to let it go on would not have been a kindness to her little dogs. They were her babies when they were babies. When they grew into young dogs, she did not mourn the change in seasons.

Human parents are different. Our seasons last far longer than those of dogs. But seasons change nonetheless and we must allow them to change – gracefully. I learned a few lessons from watching Stella raise her puppies.

• Wean your offspring firmly but kindly. Mother’s milk is great, but it won’t sustain a full grown adult.

• Don’t let them chase and tackle you. They need to focus on other things in order to be themselves.

• Don’t be afraid of the changing of the seasons. Each one has its own particular charms.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

©H.J. Hill 2016 All Rights Reserved.

I was not present when Stella’s puppies were born. They were delivered naturally, an oddity. English Bulldogs often experience birth by Caesarian Section because their puppies’ heads are so large.

I could have stayed home for it. Instead I was at work, on an inconsequential day, doing inconsequential things. I could have taken a personal day which would have allowed me to witness the miracle of animal birth. The only other time I had been present for that sort of miracle was for the assisted birth of a calf. But this time I allowed first things to be submerged beneath second things. I stayed stuck in my own personal mire of stupidity and put the unimportant ahead of a first thing.

After warning about what “the woman who makes a dog the centre of her life” loses (a warning I will endeavor to heed, Professor), C.S. Lewis wrote, “You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.”  [C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things”, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, The Collected Words of C.S. Lewis (Inspirational Press, 1996 p. 490.]

Don’t cheat yourself out of the significant events God places before you. It would have been so easy for me to be present with Stella that day, to watch what only God can do. If you have a chance to celebrate creation, a chance that does not cost any first thing of your life or the life of another, do it. Let’s not sit around and regret closed doors, doors that were open for a brief moment, doors we allowed to close while we did the mundane. There are few daily tasks that cannot be made up later.

The world makes terrible demands on us. And yes, there are duties which we must fulfill. The rest are choices. Lord, help us to choose well.

©H.J. Hill 2016 All Rights Reserved.