Do You Listen To Your Pet?

Job 12:7,10 – But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee. In [the] hand [of the Lord] is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.

Eight years ago, when our eldest daughters were off to university, I broke down and got another dog. We had been "dogless" for five years, and this one was to be for our younger daughter, "to keep her company". It wasn't long, however, before everyone knew who the dog really belonged to. Me.

She's not a purebred anything, but is a beautiful blond combination of spaniel, terrier and poodle. She has a gentle disposition.

I feed her and bathe her, I talk and she listens. We go for short car rides and long walks. She is very protective of me, perhaps even more than am I of her. She shows her jealousy if it seems to her that someone is taking up just a little too much of my time, by jumping on my lap and snuggling her head into the crook of my neck. We have a close communication, usually with our eyes. She is always close by.

Since I learned the computer, she comes in, plops down beside me with a sigh of resignation that seems to say "great, here we go again". Conditioned now to the computer's sign off music, she jumps for joy when it begins. Lately, my mind has been more pre-occupied and the computer has consumed much more of my time. I know, because my dog comes in, toy in mouth, and with her big brown eyes looks longingly at me as if to ask "What about me?"

If you can identify with this, perhaps our animals are telling us much more. Perhaps we are not spending enough time with the important things in our lives, and perhaps not enough time with God. Perhaps because we know He will always be there for us, we put other things before Him too, or perhaps don't spend quite the time with Him that we used to. We must "listen" to everything our pets tell us, for they too, are souls in the hand of God.

Prayer: Our Father in Heaven, may we learn to "listen" to more things, more often, for we know you speak to us in many different ways. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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