The Prodigal Dog

Sometimes the prodigal dog surprises you.

Honeybun is the obedient compliant one, except for her tendency early on to want to kill people. That is healed now, and she is a pretty perfect dog. Lucky, on the other hand, is mischievous, and that is putting it kindly. Lucky is very obedient, unless he would be prefer not to be, which is often.

Thus on our first kayak adventure with the dogs, Asherel successfully convinced Honeybun to travel all over the lake without her having even a moment's consideration of leaping off the kayak. Lucky sat on it for about 2 seconds and then swam for shore. I figured that was the full extent of his kayaking career.

My bursitis elbow has been slowly healing 5 full weeks now, so I decided to give kayaking a try with it. It still hurts to do any housework, and I suspect will do so for the rest of my life. But it miraculously doesn't hurt to kayak, bicycle, or do art. I know many of you are about to accuse me of being manipulative, but I assure you that I love housework, and would never consider any excuse for avoiding it.......

Anyway, the motion that hurts is mostly lifting or pushing down, but kaying is a pulling motion. I set off for my maiden voyage in my $35 inflatable kayak. I found that it works almost as well as the hard shell kayak, even against a wind that blew my hat off. Asherel and Honeybun went on their own happy exploration of the small lake, and then headed for shore while I continued on for lap 2. As I was happily following a giant muskrat that turned out to be a giant snake, which caused me then to do a quick 180, and head back to the middle of the lake, I saw Asherel and her dog in the distance.

But something was strange. The dog was not facing Asherel, lying down, being shoveled tidbits of food to keep her sterling obedience shining...... this dog was sitting on the bow of the boat, facing out looking all around cheerfully. This dog was not smooth haired and small with upright ears like the Obedient One. This dog was tall, and scruffy with sproings of hair in every direction and the look of someone plotting..... plotting overturning a kayak as soon as it hit the deepest middle of the lake.

I kayaked as fast as my atrophied muscles could take me to that dog, who I now recognized as Lucky.
"Asherel," I shrieked, in my calmest and gentlest shriek,"Get to shore NOW."
She complied but assured me Lucky was fine. Lucky looked at me, and put a paw on the edge of the kayak, as though he were about to jump in.
"Stay!" I commanded. He shrugged and sat back down. If he knew how to whistle, he would've been , happily looking around from his perch at the front of the kayak.
Asherel didn't have to feed him one bite to get him to stay. He seemed to be actually enjoying himself, as the wind rustled through his explosion of hair and the beautiful shoreline of forests and ferns slid by.

This gives me hope. Not for Lucky specifically, but for all Prodigals. You just never know when you might be surprised by someone you had written off as incorrigible. Maybe we give up too easily.... on dogs, and on people. But to be safe, tomorrow we will get Lucky a life jacket.

Luke 15: 31-32
³¹" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³²But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "