TAKING TIME FOR THE REFRESHING PAWS OF LIFE
To be truly fulfilled in this life, and to have humorous stories to tell your grandchildren about pet encounters, each person should have the opportunity to own a dog or be owned by a cat. Nothing beats the sweet aroma of puppy breath or puppy puddles on fresh carpet. And who could argue about the loving feeling of a sandpaper-like kitten tongue licking your face and cat claws attaching themselves to your nearest sensitive membrane?
I always wanted to have a puppy and a kitten and raise them together to see if they would get along. I had children instead. They didn’t. Another barrier I had to overcome to having dogs and cats at the same time is the fact that my dog of choice has always been the Chihuahua. Chihuahuas are the woke breed of dogs. They think everything is offensive. They think every person walking down the street in front of the house is out to get them. They are bullies. If they had been teenagers in the 1950’s they would have had little white T-shirts with a package of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve.
If one is to acquire a cat or a dog, one needs to be aware of some subtle differences. Puppy utensils include chew toys, leash, collar, puppy treats, and puppy bed. Brand new house slippers may be substituted for chew toys. Depending on the size of your puppy a good chew toy could be your dining room table. Mine never really went for chew toys. They pretty much played with dead bugs.
A must for new cat owners is a litter box. For some cats the litter box should be the approximate size of Nebraska. Sticking with the litter box motif, you must have a pooper scooper. For those more internally-disturbed cats you may need to rent a front-end loader. A scratching post is also a necessity. If you don’t have one, the nearest set of drapes, soft chair, bedspread, or human leg will suffice. However, they will not go near a Barka Lounger. There are roughly 60 million cats in the United States. I don’t know how many dogs there are but judging by the various piles in my front yard there is at least one very large one in my neighborhood.
When I was a child my family had a black and white Collie named Beauty. She really was beautiful. We loved her very much but we didn’t have much room for her play and run around. We eventually gave her to my uncle in Louisiana where she could run free on seven acres of fenced in land. It was a year before my brother and I could visit and my uncle warned us not to get too close because she had become very protective. As we approached the fence we called her name. She immediately ran up to the fence, stuck her paw through and shook hands, something we had taught her as a puppy.
I think about Beauty whenever I read the parable of the Prodigal Son. God is not pleased when we wander away from Him but He is always there, waiting to welcome us home and shake our hand. It’s easy to pick on the younger brother for what he did. However, if we took time to pause and look into the mirror, we might realize we could be the older brother in the parable. Some of us have wandered away and never really left home, but we can’t shake God’s hand because ours are too busy pointing fingers.