Annie was my son’s eleventh birthday present. Her name was Jackie then. She was three months old, half mini dachshund and half Jack Russell, and she came from a friend of a friend on Facebook, a couple in their sixties who said she was a Texas tornado. Too hyper. Nothing like they expected. They wanted her in a good home. I asked how much. The wife said she was a gift.
She wasn’t a tornado. She was a puppy. I think those folks had just been a long time away from one.
A few days in, my son came to us crying. She was sleeping in his room, it was too much, and he wasn’t ready for a puppy of his own yet. So we traded. Our older dachshund went to his room and the puppy came to ours. She picked my wife that week and hasn’t reconsidered in seven years.
She’s headstrong and territorial and loving on her own terms. My wife can pick her up and hold her and kiss her. Not everybody gets that. She’ll roll over for me and let me rub her belly, and she plays rougher with me than with anyone, but she knows whose dog she is.
She also runs on a schedule. Around five she starts stirring. Friday I tried to sleep in and she climbed onto my pillow and licked the side of my face until I gave up. I let her out, let her back in, and she ran straight to the bathroom to check on my wife, then to her little bed on the bathroom floor. She lies on top of the blanket for a while. Eventually she burrows under it and goes back to sleep.
That morning a he stayed on top too long, and I was headed out for work. So I picked her up. She grumbled. She growled a little. I kissed her on the head, told her to shut up, lifted the blanket, and put her under it.
Seven years, and she still hasn’t figured out that I’ve never hurt her. I feed her off my plate. I scratch behind her ears. I know her routine, and all I did was carry her to where she was already wanted to be. She growled anyway.
It made me wonder if I do the same thing to God. God has never hurt me either. He takes such good care of me and my family. He’s walked me through the valleys and brought the peaks after. There’s always been food on the plate and a roof overhead. I am so grateful.
Sometimes his gifts are me not getting what I deserve. Sometimes they’re him making me a little uncomfortable on the way somewhere better. He has never failed me. And the minute my routine gets moved, I’m the one grumbling.
She curled into a ball and was asleep before I made it out of the bathroom.
I love that little dog.
