Greener Grass

I was enjoying watching Asherel win her jumpers class when my neighbor called my cell phone. Our other dog Lucky was doing an independent jumpers class on his own. He had apparently hopped our fence, been corralled into a neighbor's fenced yard, jumped that, and was now with my friend. She locked him in my bedroom til we returned.

The next morning, I was enjoying my coffee and relaxing from an exhausting but fun weekend when my cell phone rang again. It was 7 a.m.
"I have your dog," he said.
Now of course, first thought was that this was a dog-napper asking for ransom. Second thought was I wondered if I could arrange visitation rights. Let him keep the stupid dog contained in a fence.
"How much can I pay you to keep him?" I asked.

It was not, of course, Honeybun, who had jumped the fence and disappeared right after her breakfast. She, who had lived on her own in the wild and nearly starved to death and been beaten down with hundreds of ticks and fleas had no desire to leave her lovely home. It was Lucky, who has escaped our yard for years despite growing barricades we erect with ascendingly more horrifying aesthetic results.

The dognapper, alas, was not interested in keeping Lucky, so I grabbed a leash and put on my running shoes and went for an earlier run than planned.

Upon return, I went to the electronic collar manual. We had the voltage at the lowest setting, just a little beep and quiet zap to remind this stupid escape artist that it was more pleasant to remain in the confines of our yard. I upped the zap factor. Next I went to Lowes and bought 50 feet of wire. In the mosquito infested dribbling rain and 90 degree heat and 1,000 percent humidity, Arvo and I tacked the wire all along the remaining fence side that looked halfway reputable. We tacked the heavy wire another 5 feet above the fence. Now our fence looked like Alcatraz in its heyday. Lucky watched us from the back deck. He was smirking.

We were gone all day yesterday and when we returned, he was still home. We will see how long this fix works. When we were stuck in a traffic jam yesterday, Karissa was looking up words in the car dictionary (i keep one there as you never know when you are traveling and need just the right word).
"Tendentious!" she called out.
Adjective- having or showing a definite tendency, bias, or purpose.
Lucky is tendentious.
Since birth, Lucky has not wanted to be contained. He wants no restrictions on his freedom. He has a definite tendency, bias and purpose to explore the greener grass on the other side, wherever that other side may be. He has a cushy life with everything he wants, yet from his early puphood when he fell into the understreet sewer system at 6 weeks old and thus was rescued and became our dog, he has not been satisfied to stay where he should. He will climb out, or dig out, or jump out.... and when he finds himself on the other side, unable to get back to his dog door and food, water and comfort, he whines at the front door like it is our fault he is out there hungry, hot, and dehydrated.

And while I would kick him if I were the dog kicking type (which I am not and abhor those types), I sort of understand. I am not all that different. Neither were Adam and Eve. I think we all tend to want what we don't have, fight ferociously to get it, and then discover it was not at all what we had hoped it would be. Contentment and recognition of the wonderful blessings that surround us, the simple wonder of being in the presence of a loving God who created us and yearned for our decision to love him in return does not come easily to me. I am always yearning for something more, something better, something easier, something harder, something that is different from what I have..... and lose sight of the fact that what I have is enough and always has been. The difference between me and God is that He will not build bigger fences to keep me at His side. The great pathos in that story is that He created me with the capacity to leave should I choose to do so and He refuses to stop me. Instead of a giant wire barricade that hems me in and keeps me home, He whispers my name and waits.

Judges 6:17-19 (New International Version)

¹⁸ Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you."
And the LORD said, "I will wait until you return."