Are you a Chihuahua?

My only excuse is that when I get nervous, my brain shuts down. I looked right at the large, curly haired dog, and asked the owner if this was the chihuahua who was up next.
"This is a standard poodle," she said.

They needed volunteers for the class at Asherel's agility trial, and I had told them I would fill in as needed.
"Can you be a scribe?" the volunteer coordinator asked.
"Well, I've never done it."
She looked me up and down.
"How about a timer?"
"Well, I've never done that either."
She looked at her list.
"We need a gate steward.... have you....no, I guess you've never done that either."
"I can maybe learn," I offered. I hate being unqualified for unpaying, unskilled jobs.
"Ok, gate steward is easy, I will teach you."
So she showed me how to cross off the names of the dogs as they finished their run, and to always have the next three dogs on the list waiting and ready to go when their turn came. I was a nervous wreck. I knew that if things slowed down because the gate steward was messing up, the judge was not going to be happy. A friend with a loud voice gave me a lesson in speaking from the diaphragm so I could project the dogs' names across the arena. I tried it.
"Not unnaturally low," she corrected me. She gave a few more lessons, and then shaking her head almost imperceptibly went to get her dog. I practiced some diaphragmatic breathing. Another lady helpfully suggested I just look at the breed of the dog up next.
"Then you will know who is next," she said sweetly.
I would, except that a funny thing happens when I get nervous... I think Standard Poodles are chihuahuas.

For the next half hour, I would look carefully at the dog's name and breed next on the list, and repeat it over and over in my head. Then I would look around, and call out the name, wishing fervently I had paid closer attention to the Westminster dog show and knew what the heck a Trolling Dog was. Or something like that. When I asked one lady if she was the next in line, which happened to be an all-american breed , she smirked. "All American" is a fancy way of saying mutt, and I had just asked this of some highly pedigreed dog. I knew I had insulted her. Truly I hadn't meant to. She then explained, "This is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. That is the All American dog." She pointed at a mixed breed nearby, and the owner smiled and waved.
I blinked.

And so I sweated my way through a job that I have seen others do while laughing, joking, smiling....All I could do to survive was give it my full concentration. I know I am not dumb. At least my parents have told me that they know my IQ and insist I am not dumb. At least not too dumb to call out dog names and cross them off a list after they run in the class. But I don't think my full potential was being demonstrated. I collapsed when the gate steward job ended. I think I had lost 5 pounds in that half hour.

Asherel and Honeybun did very well. She placed thrid and qualified in her first class, and had a clean run and almost qualified in her second. She had a couple of refusals in her third, but otherwise a clean run then too. It was a good day. We get to do it all over again today. I am bringing my dog breed encyclopedia and plan to study.

This morning, while preparing at this unseemly hour of darkness to leave early for the show, I saw a youtube video of a dog that was floating on the tsunami wreckage. He had apparently been stranded on small floating two by fours and splintered wood without food or water for three weeks. The Japanese rescue helicopter, after spotting him, called in men and boats who rescued the stranded dog. As they pulled the poor creature in, he licked them.
Somehow, that brought an awful lot of the world into perspective for me. A half a world away, a people devastated by one of the worst natural disasters in history had the kindness, the compassion, to save one dying dog. And the dog's first response was to lick the face of his savior. I am quite sure they didn't know the breed. I am also pretty sure it didn't matter, not at all. And the dog didn't care the breed of his rescuers either. True compassion and true gratitude don't see boundaries.

Funny how the Bible verse I thought of was Jonah, who initally disobeyed God and refused to bring God's word of salvation to the Ninevites. Jonah hated the idolatrous Ninevites.
"They won't listen anyway," he told God as he ran away.

I'll let you tie the meaning of these disparate events together. There may not even be a connection other than dogs. It is too early and too rushed to tie it all together. Good luck! I gotta run to the dog show.....

Jonah 2:8-10

 ⁸ “Those who cling to worthless idols
   turn away from God’s love for them.
⁹ But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
   will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
   I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.’”
 ¹⁰ And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.