What Dogs Can Teach Us

 Over the years our family has included both cats and dogs that helped us raise our kids.   They became our companions. Our cats seemed willing to allow us the privilege of living with them.  Our dogs seemed grateful for the privilege of living with us. They taught us the difference between dog theology and cat theology.  

 It might sound strange, even sacrilegious to a few, but Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison have developed whole seminars and books around “cat and dog theology.” Simply put, cats say, “You feed me, shelter me and care for me.  I must be god.”  Dogs say, “You feed me, shelter me and care for me.  You must be god.”  If you have ever had a cat and a dog you know what I mean.  Cat theology is me-centered.  “What can God do for me?” Dog theology is God centered. “What does God want me to do?”

 A tri-color corgi named Buddy was a member of our family for 14 years until dog years caught up with him in 2022.  Here are a few things I learned from Buddy.

 I need to trust God.  Whenever I got in my truck he jumped in and took his place, ready to go.  He didn’t know where we were going or what we were going to do. But if I was driving it was okay. I always want to know where we are going, when we are going to get there and what we are going to do once we arrive.  I need to jump in the truck with God and give him control of my life.

 Buddy wanted to be with me.  He didn’t care if he was at the lake running, splashing and rolling in the mud, sitting in a chair next to me on the patio or in my study lying at my feet while I write.  He just wanted to be where I was.   I need to spend time with God.  What made the early disciples different was the fact they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13).

 Buddy followed me.  He even followed me from room to room in the house. Whenever we went for walks on an empty beach, I let him off his leash and he ran free.  But he kept an eye on me.  He developed a radius of his own, about thirty yards from wherever I was.  Within that radius he felt comfortable sniffing washed up driftwood and marking sand dunes.  When I called his name he came running. Not real fast, but as fast as he could. After all he was a Corgi.   He reminded me of what Jesus said to His disciples, “Come, follow me!”  “My sheep know my voice.” 

 Dog years are not people years and we had to lay Buddy down, but Buddy left behind his own book, Buddy the Floppy Ear Corgi, on Amazon that tells how he was rescued off the streets and how he learned to love himself and others just the way God made them. I wrote it “just the way he told it to me.”  Since God has rescued me, I can love myself and others too, just the way He made us.