Part 3: This is it.

What does this have to do with what I am supposed to do? I kept thinking, “I love to work with dogs,” and “ I love to serve people”. HOWEVER, the serving people is more a “brain-work” serving not a “do something for” serving. I love teaching, I loved being an EMT-I, I love organizing, I hated being a waitress.

How do those things work together? Oh yeah, I always wanted to try “therapy dog” work. Except for Tiger, I never had the dog that could do it. Where I lived with Tiger, there was no therapy dog organization and I just didn’t know how to go about forming one. NOW, I finally had the time to organize one. NOW, I had the dog that could do it: the accidental mutt, Leala. NOW, must be the time to pursue this.

I started research. YES, my new home town does have a therapy dog organization. I was psyched! For two weeks, I tried to make contact. No one had their phone number, my emails went unanswered (turns out the web-person’s mother died that week). I was getting frustrated. I called the sponsoring national organization. I called a certifying 80 miles away. I staggered….maybe this wasn’t it.

Then the thought struck me: I had never had Leala out anywhere except the vet. When we got her, she was terrified of her own shadow. Although she was confident at home, I had no idea how she would react to people in new places. Except for the vet, I had only seen her run from people.

Time to load up and go to Petsmart. Within 30 minutes of the thought, I was at Petsmart with Leala on a Sunday afternoon. It was adoption weekend and the place was in chaos. Leala, terrified of riding in cars, jumped out of the car to see hordes of people. I was intentionally “throwing her in”. I knew therapy dogs had to have a hardy mental constitution.
Leala loved it. People petted her, loved on her, gave her treats. She thought it was the greatest. I walked out the door of Petsmart even more frustrated. HOW could I contact the pet therapy group?

As I was leaving, a friend of mine, Michelle, who was working the adoption day, saw me and stopped me to say, hi. I introduced her to Leala and told her that I wanted to certify her as a therapy dog but couldn’t contact the group. Michelle smiled and pointed to a lady with a HUGE dog: Joan and Bella. Within a minute, I was on my way to signing up for the once a year training class which started the next week…good, I mean God timing.

Leala has been to two classes and absolutely loves them. Of course I think she is the best dog in the class. She is undisputedly an easy student.
It was time to test my own merit. I did my first tag-a-long. I went with Joan and Bella to a local Mental Health facility. I decided if I really wanted to jump in, this would be the place. I would sink or swim. I was expecting some personal apprehension as I had never been in a Mental Health facility. I was a little surprised when I found myself feeling perfectly at home…hmmm, that’s an interesting personal revelation.

This certainly seems like where I am to be. I got the right dog, I was at the right place at the right time, I am very comfortable and excited about it. If I am wrong, I can’t wait to see what God may have that is even better!

Part 2: DOG Depend On God

Spinning my wheels, I tried focusing on what is it that I should/want to do..? My core function has ALWAYS been involved with animals. My science, my art, my hobbies….everything. When I drive down the road, I don’t look at people’s clothing, their homes or landscaping, I look for animals: birds, squirrels, dogs, cows, donkeys, vultures, horses, even road-kill….God made me that way. It may have been easier to focus on “girl stuff” but “my stuff” has always been critters. Call me Eli Mae.

So I was playing the guessing game with God. What is it that you want me to do? I have tried critter-work and it was never satisfying. Through experience, I have developed various degrees of distaste for events like dog training, dog grooming, dog breeding, dog and horse shows, fish raising, bird raising and other commercial or pseudo commercial ventures. I never had a desire to raise critters to eat. I would rather eat tofu.

So What? What else? Okay, personal inventory. I want world peace. I like people. Hmmm, maybe there is something dealing with people I should do? Teach…been there doing that in various forms, don’t want to go deeper. Visitor Center? Okay, but relatively boring. WHAT????

People and horses? Love to ride and hug my horses: too expensive to dive deeper right now.

Okay, I have dogs, so what? I can throw them in the back of the car and do something, maybe? What? Inventory dogs: one hyper, slightly schizoid Labrador, not good for much but retrieving a shredded basketball. One ancient grumpy Jack Russell, need to keep her under wraps. One Jack Russell—may or may not want to work with me. Finally, there is Leala, the accidental dog.

Leala was a terrified mangy mongrel when we first saw her. I didn’t even want to catch her for fear of contamination. She slinked around the roads for two weeks before a caring lady caught her and treated for ticks, fleas, mange…all those wonderful things strays live acquire. The stray mongrel’s eyes haunted me. Something made me call Chris and offer to take the mutt after she treated her.

For the next six months, I just let Leala get used to being loved. For a long time, any time we tried to put any pressure on her, she froze. I never saw one iota of aggression, just submissive fear. After six months of hanging with my other dogs, Leala was according to the vet’s unsolicited comment, “A good dog.” A vet knows the difference between a good dog and a bad dog.
In her inward growing, she also became quite a beautiful dog. Golden coat with white markings and just enough fluff to feel soft, but not get tangled. She is always obedient, gentle and kind spirited. Something kindred to our deceased “once in a lifetime Labrador”, Tiger.

Leala was a dog who just showed up, one with whom we accidentally became acquainted.

Part 1: Lost in New Space

Destiny has been on my mind lately. Unfortunately, I am one of those folks who Destiny needs to bop on the head with a two by four for me to notice. Even then sometimes, I am not sure of what I see.

I have moved more than 30 times and most of those were to different locations in different states. I have learned to fit in quickly before opportunity passes. I no doubt have let panic guide my decisions, more than once.

In the midst of my self-created chaos, I have learned that if I seek God, he always shows up and offers peace in my heart.

This last move really threw me a kilter. Within weeks, we found a wonderful God serving church where we all felt comfortable. As usual, I started volunteering to serve. Volunteering has been my most successful method to integrate into a new community. I was totally frustrated and infinitely confused when I found it impossible to find steady volunteer work at my new beloved church. Conversely, my hubby who rarely has time to do church-work quickly found himself nearly stretched too thinly at our new place of worship.

So what was going on? I knew my church was God-loving-serving-worship and I felt like it is the most mature church I have ever attended. I know that I am spiritually more mature than ever. Why was I not meshing with the cogs of this new church? I wanted to serve there. I signed up for numerous jobs, but I was not able to do a thing except lend an occasional helping hand.

My mind toyed with rejection but I knew that was not the case. This was a church of God loving people. Even those who they “don’t like” are liked…if you know what I mean. My only conclusion was that God has other plans for me.

Maybe I have come to the place where God wants me out in the community with the church as my refuge. So I wondered what?

Memories of Wilson or Tooth

After much discomfort, innumerable dollars and a month of back and forth to dentists, root canal specialists, and oral surgeons, the consensus was that my tooth could not be saved from a 7-year-old botched crown.

I was scheduled to have it extracted yesterday, Wednesday.

HOWEVER, by Sunday evening all I could think of was the worst horror clip in all of filmdom; the scene in Castaway when Tom Hanks knocked out his own offending tooth. After an excruciatingly painful and sleepless Sunday night (even after 800 MG Ibuprophen), Monday morning I called the oral surgeon and scheduled the extraction ASAP. I was home by 1:30PM (I think). The worst part of the surgery was the dental assistant insisting I had to wake up and go home. I was sleeping so well.

I was able to vote on Tuesday, it took a total of 10 minutes from walking out my back door, being driven to the poll, voting, being driven home and walking in the back door. There are several advantages to living in rural America. I was disappointed because I had been planning on riding my horse Miss Kitty, to the fire station polling place (we ride up there regularly). Although it is not mentioned in the warnings, I think riding a horse cross country is probably not a good thing to do when loopy on pain killers....

Anyway, I remembered most of the names of the people I was going to vote for.....

After a couple of days on liquids only, I have now advanced to soft bread...yippee!! I am sick of yogurt and pudding. I only took 400MG of Ibuprophen this morning, and I can feel a twinge. It is a good trade off, not having the Ibuprophen dullness of brain.

I knew I was on the road to recovery yesterday afternoon when Fed-Ex delivered a package. (no joke!)

Dog Gone It

We have two HUGE pecan trees and several smaller ones that I suspect are close relatives of the HUGE ones.

Lately they have been dropping LOTS of pecans...huge, yummy, buttery, sweet pecans.

I have to gather pecans at least twice a day because the dogs love to chew on them. Mostly they crack them open and leave most of the meat because they hit the bitter lining of the shells. Today I noticed that there were fewer whole pecans and more "dog cracked" pecans. However, I noted the dog cracked ones were getting cleaned out more efficiently. As I gathered my pecans, Leala (Aussie/Lab mix) and Sunny (pure Lab) "helped" by running ahead and cracking open all the pecans they could find before I could get to them.

This gave me an idea. I took our prime retriever Sunny, inside and grabbed the doggie treats. I tossed a pecan and said "bring it" (her favorite command). It took her about 5 pecans before she realized the game was "get the pecan and trade it for a treat". She was SOOOO excited. I rolled number 6 pecan across the floor when she wasn't looking and told her "find pecan". She was ecstatic and searched diligently until she found and brought me the nut, trading for a doggie treat.

Now some of you know I have trained dogs, putting several AKC titles on my dogs. The titles are all displayed with initials like CH, CD, CDX, etc.....When it comes to retrieving, Sunny is an unofficial OCD Labrador. (That is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) We usually discourage retrieving because it is such an obsession. For example, today when I took my "after lunch pasture walk", Leala and Timber (Jack Russell) found a lovely dead rat to roll on. Sunny never saw it because for the entire walk she was continuously tormenting me with her favorite deflated basketball; carrying it 15 feet in front of me, dropping it, waiting until I passed by, retrieving it and carrying it 15 feet in front of me, dropping it, waiting...you get the idea. She never even smelled the dead rat.

I was confident of her interest and ability for retrieving pecans. Sunny was so excited about our retrieving lesson that she could hardly contain herself. Unfortunately, my confidence was quickly shattered when I secretly rolled number 7 across the floor. I said "find pecan" and she engaged, tail slashing happily, nose casting back and forth, decades of hunting ancestors showing their mark. She found the pecan, ran to me, sat and promptly swallowed the whole pecan.....end of lesson.

I promise, I will let you all know how it comes out in the end.

Tim Russell is in Hiding

Tim Russell is now in hiding. It is not a good idea to let your dog talk on the phone. I thought I was so smart listing our secondary phone under the dog's name and then handing it off to him when I got unwanted callers who asked for "Tim Russell". Someday I will learn that others are more practiced at absurdity than I am. Perhaps they just cannot distinquish between reality and absurdity.

A few months after I let the dog talk on the phone (see May 2007 post), he started receiving bills from a hospital. My first reaction was laugh and then I shredded the bill.

The next bill came from a collection agency. I wondered if I should respond. Will it ruin my dog's credit rating for ever if I didn't? Better yet, can I get credit cards in his name and run up the bill? Am I responsible for my dog's credit as a legal guardian or because he is under 18? I was confused.

Out of politeness and naivete, I called the collection agency to explain that the only hospital my dog had visited was Dr. Dan's, the vet and that we did not owe him anything.

Lesson one is never call a collection agency out of politeness. They almost had me in tears of frustration, trying to explain that Tim was a dog. Meanwhile, the dog was watching intently, wondering why I was repeating his name into the phone. I didn't let him talk!

Evidentally, I did not do a good job explaining, as we continued to get Tim Russell's unpaid hospital bills.

I called the hospital and explained the problem and requested that they get the collection agency off my back. The billing clerk was very kind and understanding and got a good chuckle from the mistake. She said she would correct the mistake.

Collection agencies are the Pitbulls of the money world. We continued to get threats and bills.

The phone number listed under Tim's name was a second-ring line that was rarely used so I disconnected the service. Of course that did not stop the bills.

I wrote nasty letters to the collection agency. That did not help.

Finally we moved (truthfully, it was unrelated to Tim Russell's $165.00 bill). I did not request Tim Russell's mail be forwarded! Our new phone is not in his name.

As a last ditch attempt to stop the collection agency harassment, I sent a copy of my dog Tim's AKC registration, and a copy of his latest paid vet bill to the collection agency.

I have not heard from them since.

Telemarket Call

My husband doesn't want people to have our address, so our phone numbers are listed under our dog's name and breed. (it costs $6.95 a month, per line to have them unlisted) Anyway, this afternoon a tele-lady called. This is how the conversation went:

"Mrs. Russell?"
"No." I was in a non-talkative mood.
"Isn't this the residence of Tim Russell?"
"Tim Russell is my dog."
"Your dog?"
"Yes."
"I see, you named your dog Tim Russell?" Laughter.
"Yes."
"May I speak to him?"
"Sure."
"TIMBER!" I yelled and laid the phone on the floor. All the dogs came over and snarfelled it. I finally heard a tone from the phone so I hung it up. They didn't call back.

Signs from Above

I am not the kind of person who needs to see signs from God in order to have faith. In fact, when he does send a sign, I often waver wondering if it is really a sign.

One would think that when you almost feel like fainting because of the wonder of what you just saw, that you would easily recognize that wonderment as being from God. Maybe its the stoic scientist in me that keeps me from letting go, or maybe its the cautionary side of the artist in me...Maybe it is just shear incomprehension of the true glory of God.

Okay, so here it is... The sign I am thinking about.

Long story short: I had to put down my horse Zack. I didn't have the money to buy a new horse. My gracious parents bestowed a great gift and told me they would buy me a horse. A little girl's dream come true (okay so I am almost 54, who cares?).

I sat down and thought about the attributes of my dream horse. I like several different kinds of colorful horses. I love buckskins, but we already have a beautiful but old buckskin pet pony. I love champagnes, appaloosas, pintos, duns just about anything unusual. I decided on a younger horse, broke well, but not finished , maybe 3 or 4 years old.

I decided I wanted an easy horse. I weeded through hundreds of horses in the papers and on the internet. I went to look at several geldings. Ringo was a pinto that was 95% white, too narrow but a terrific ride even if he seemed a bit too dull. There were several whose names I don't remember, too wild, too big, too ugly, too rough, too expensive, too psychotic , etc. I drove hundreds of miles. I was worn out and discouraged.

Then the thought hit me, for some reason I thought I should get a gelding, but as I thought about it, 8 out of 10 of my top favorite rides of the past have been mares. That included Polly, who was the first horse I ever bought myself.

Polly was my favorite horse ever, a bay with a big old blaze and one blue eye. I always thought her blue eye was really cool. Her personality has always been my measure for a good horse. I was sixteen, Polly was six and broke but untrained. In a very short time I was jumping her 3' with no saddle and only a halter. She was always forgiving of all of my immaturities.

Why not consider a mare?

I called someone I knew and trusted but had not seen a while. He and a friend of his had bought several very young horses a few years ago and were planning on training and selling them. I figured they should be about sale age now. I phoned buy got no answer after several tries and left messages.

I started looking again. I found a mare 50 miles away that looked very promising. On my way out to see her, my husband called and said my old friend had gotten home from vacation and yes his friend had a horse that might fit what I was looking for.

However, I got to the end of my 50 mile destination and was very impressed by the mare I saw. She was a sorrel and white pinto, not my favorite coloration but she was gorgeous. Her owner was terrific. She was well bred, beautiful, sound in mind and body. She was smooth as silk to ride and well behaved. She was just a tad short for my taste and for my husband's size. In spite of that, I would have bought her if it had not been for the call from my husband about my friend's horse.

On the way home I almost gave in. I picked up my cell phone and almost called and bought the sorrel and white mare. I even picked out a name for her "Miss Kitty". I never ask about names as I want the privilege of naming my own horse. She was a really nice little mare I only wavered because of her size.

I decided to wait until tomorrow to call and buy her, after I had seen the horse my friend was talking about. I called and made an appointment to see that horse but I made mental plans for trailering "Miss Kitty" home.

The next morning, I went out to my friend's friend's horse. Not too enthusiastically as I really thought "Miss Kitty" was to be mine.

I got out of my car and Wayne had her in the cross ties. I could see that from her rear she was a nicely built horse. Bay pinto, mostly black tail (I always liked white manes but black tails...). I eyeballed her as I walked closer, liking what I saw: 50/50 brown bay and white, cat paw spots, black spots on her legs, black coronets, very pretty. I walked into the breezeway and that is when she turned her head and I saw the sign.

I was so struck I think I just gaped my mouth and pointed at her one blue eye. Wayne nodded and said something almost apologetic about her having one blue eye. I don't even remember my response, I was trying to keep from crying.

If a horse is not good with its trainer, I am not interested. This horse stood calmly for brushing and tacking. I just watched, intently. This mare seemed to enjoy her trainer. Although she was not overly interested in being my friend.

I wanted to watch Wayne ride before I got on her. He rode. She was perfectly willing to do everything he asked. I got on her. She was perfect for me and smooth as silk. While I sat on the mare and asked questions, she stood and relaxed. Somewhere in mid-conversation, Wayne mentioned her name was "Miss Kitty", I almost fell off.

I bought her. My heart saddened when Wayne dropped her off at the barn where I board. As he drove off, Miss Kitty ran across the pasture trying to follow. I hoped one day, she would honor me with that loyalty.

Long story short: Miss Kitty is now my buddy. I have had her for about 2 months. We are cultivating a relationship that may surpass the one I had with Polly. I really like this horse. She runs up the hill when she sees my truck coming. She is calm but not a dead-head, eager to learn, smooth as silk, brightly colored, sweet, fun to ride, her mane is white and tail is black, she has turned an unsual dun color and has one blue eye.

How could the eye not have been a sign? The "Miss Kitty" part was surely a second to the motion. Thank you, Lord for blessing me.
For pictures of Kitty...

Sunrise

At 6AM I watched a beautiful sunrise fade into the hazy blue of morning. Orange sky blesses me. This morning it brought on a revelation.

I have sort of lived two lives. Well, not sort of, definately, I have lived two lives and I don't mean in the hocus pocus of reincarnation.

Twenty-five years ago, I could have been caught up in the same view of sunrise. Rising early, driving out to go horseback riding, my husband and thirteen-year-old son at home.

Today was VERY different. I am still; Rising early, driving out to go horseback riding, my husband and son at home.

So what is different? Many things. First, they are a different husband and son, but that really isn't that different. My first husband was not a horrible person, my first son is still a nice guy. Second, after 25 years, it is a different set of horses. The real difference however, is in my heart. My heart is at peace.

It was the discord in my heart that led to a divorce over 20 years ago. It was discord in my heart that kept me on edge, that kept me feeling like I had to have something better. The sunrise today was very different. I saw it through different eyes. The eyes are sooooo connected to the heart. Today, I saw it through a peaceful heart.

So how did my choatic heart grow to be a peaceful heart? In my seeking after the divorce, I found only one place that my heart was content. That place was in the hands of Jesus. If you are not a "believer" and reading this, I cannot convince you of how much Jesus changed my life. All I can do is encourage you to ask Jesus into your heart, to be your guide. You will never reget it.

Live a blessed life.