The other night, Millie had a nightmare. She was crying and twitching in her sleep. It was pitiful. I woke her up and told her everything was OK, gave her a reassuring hug. For an instant she looked confused and disoriented. Then she licked her lips, thumped her tail twice, yawned, stretched her big toes and went back to sleep with a huge, rumbling sigh.
But I lay awake for a while thinking about animals and our responsibilities to them… and theirs to us, dogs particularly. God gave us dogs, I am sure, as nearly his greatest gift. Apart from Jesus, dogs are our greatest heavenly legacy. God endowed dogs with dashes of his own cosmic qualities: They are faithful, loyal, fearless and forgiving. They will do anything for us, even die for us. And they love. Oh, do they love! Perpetual, unconditional, crazy love.
And we love ’em back, mostly, if you ignore the fact that more than 13,000 unwanted dogs are destroyed each day in America. From the perspective of a dog, there are no unwanted humans. So maybe this will be the year that you or someone in your family adopts a shelter dog. Maybe that’s what Millie was dreaming about, dreaming about the poor dogs who are living in a shelter and looking for a home where they will be loved as much as they love.
My sister-in-law, Toni, emailed me a compelling video about shelter dogs. I think the video comes down a bit hard on us humans. Still, I thought you’d like to see it. And if any of you are planning to adopt a shelter dog, please post below and share.
