What is the story of your dog?
So many tender mercies connected us with Nutmeg ~ maybe that’s why Dog is God spelled backwards.
You’re listening to the Love Tidbits Podcast, where you’ll discover a small, tasty, delightful, bite-sided tidbit of love ~ I’m your host, LeAnn Austin
Hey y’all, welcome to Love Tidbits, episode #63: Nutmeg
About seven years ago, an amazing woman named Richie was driving on the interstate from Alabama to Georgia, and she thought she saw something moving out of the corner of her eye and she wasn’t sure what it was. So she circled back around, took the next exit, drove back around, and pulled off on the side of the road. And there she discovered two baby puppies and a mama dog. Now, she loaded up the baby puppies into her car because she wasn’t sure if the mama dog was still alive. But then she saw her move just a little bit at the very end, so she scooped her up as well and put her in her car, and took all three dogs home to her already two dogs that she had there. And she nursed those three dogs back to health throughout the next year.
Well, fast forward a year and LeAnn decided that maybe it was time for her to get a dog. Remember, I have four boys and they had been asking all their lives for a dog, and Jeff had too. Now they had never really pressed me on it, but they had wanted a dog, and I’m like, no, four boys is enough, we don’t need a dog. But I was starting to think, maybe we do. My second son was getting ready to graduate from high school and I thought, if we’re gonna get a dog, we need to do it soon, or these boys are gonna be all out of the house.
So anyway, apparently when you need a dog, there’s a lot of places you can find one, but Jeff found a dog on Petfinder and so we made an appointment and we drove out to take a look at this dog.
Now we had seen a couple other ones before then, and we went to see this one and both of us just fell in love with her. She is, I don’t know what kind of dog, cuz I don’t know all my dog names, but she’s a rescue dog kind of part lab, could be part pit bull, kind of a mix, that kind of a dog. And she was excited to see us and we were excited to see her.
We talked about it on the way home, and I thought, alright, I think we can get a dog. So we did. We’ve had her for almost six years, and what a ride it has been. So lots of learning and training took place, especially at the beginning. Just understanding her and helping her do things. I think it’s so fascinating the things that we learn from dogs.
So a couple things that I learned from Nutty is the sniffing; dogs love to sniff, and when I take her on walks or runs, she wants to sniff at everything. And it used to really annoy me, I’m like, come on, let’s go, no sniffing. But now it really creates curiosity for me. I’m like, huh, maybe I need to slow down and smell the roses. Just like she takes time to sniff everything on the side of the path. So just the curiosity from her and watching her do that and also the nice balance between her sniffing things and then, alright LeAnn, I’m right by you walking or running, whatever we’re doing. And then sometimes she’ll pause and sniff and then back to whatever we’re doing, like running and walking and it’s just fun to watch her do that. So her taking time to sniff everything really has helped me pause and be like, okay, here’s some time to slow down. Here’s some time to appreciate all the things around us. So I’m so grateful that she’s taught me that.
One other thing that I’ve learned from Nutmeg is unconditional love. She loves me no matter what. When I’m frustrated that she’s chewed up the fence, or an object in our house, or whatever she’s done, unconditional love. She always loves me, always no matter what, and she’s excited to see me. So what has your dog taught you, and what do you love about your dog? It’s fun to think about what we’ve learned from dogs and what we love about them.
Oprah Winfrey shares: “Over the years I have felt the truest, purest love – the love of God, really, I imagine that’s what God’s love feels like – is the love that comes from your dog.” Hmmm, something to think about.
Have a good one y’all ~ and here’s to our dog, and unconditional love.
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