Our apricot-colored adorable mini-poodle has habits that are hard to break. Popcorn has had only four weeks with us, but five years with some other owner building up her internal sense of the way things are and will be.
When walking her on leash, nowadays she'll usually rememberthe proper place to pee and poop. But then she'll suddenly squat on the concrete and eliminate before we notice and pull her to the proper place.
Progress is the fact that now she'll eagerly walk on the sidewalk dirt or grass strip--before she loathed it. She's even acting like a proper dog and sniffing trees and grass for places other dogs have marked and adding her own.
What in her past experience made her so undog-like, urinating on concrete, afraid of grass, fearful of us and what we offer? We know little of her history, only that the Humane Society found her on the streets, but we infer much from her behavior.
She's been afraid to come to us sometimes even when we're squatting down and offering a bit of sausage. She'll run enthusiastically towards us, then suddenly stop dead, quivering.
We'll coax her with high pleading voices and she'll elongate her body, stretching out low to get her head near us and then turn tail and run away without the treat.
As she's learned that we are gentle owners who stroke not strike, she shrinks from us much less.
And I'll admit I myself, am like Popcorn with my present Owner. I too carry baggage. I too run away from God when he calls me and offers me delicious food.
I avoid admitting to him or trustworthy friends my anxiety, confusion and need. It's as if I'm pooping on the sidewalk. My neediness is okay when I deposit it in the right place. Put in the wrong place my neediness becomes lazy procrastination, ugly judgment of others, and hated and despair regarding myself.
I want to see my Master for who He really is--not what my past experiences would make me see him to be--gentle and loving, patient and understanding who holds good, good things in his hand for me.
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