Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself or Maybe A Bottle Of Cough Syrup

I've pretty much always been afraid of anything I didn't have control over, but went ahead and did whatever I wanted anyway. I saw fear as a challenge and wore my game face. As a child, there was only one thing I hated worse than foul tasting medicine and that was the place it came from, the doctors office. I was never a good patient and putting a little Vick's on my chest was like trying to put a cat in a five gallon bucket of water. I could be burning up with fever yet insist that I was feeling fine because I was terrified of that potential car ride. Who knew what was going to happen after we got there! Nurses and doctors had access to needles, nasty tasting medicines, and wooden gagging sticks all stored neatly in a funny smelling office with trees and birds painted on the walls. Who were those trees fooling, anyway?!

I was sick each and every Christmas as a young child and dreaded it actually, because I knew what would happen. The big problem was, not one of those needle-toting doctors could figure out why. They just wanted to stick my finger with a thumb tack or take blood out of my arm or send home more delicious medicine. It wasn't until Mom took me to a doctor, an older fellow with the office that looked like a Norman Rockwell painting, that my Christmas time plague was cured. He told Mom to go home and throw our real Christmas tree outside and buy a fake one next year and I would be fine. To me, it was like a Christmas miracle! That Norman Rockwell doctor had figured out that I was very allergic to those real trees! The holidays were awesome for me from then on, but the thing that didn't change was, I still was afraid of doctors.

Who knows how I ended up working for doctors during nearly fifteen years of my life! I saw what these talented physicians did for people in getting them well, but I was still terrified to be the patient. I nearly always had to have my blood pressure checked multiple times because even though my face didn't tell the story, my heart beating out of my chest did. The first time I went to the chiropractor for my neck, I just knew he was going to break it. After my x-rays, he took my blood pressure, then my pulse all the while looking at me strangely. Finally he asks if I was nervous. I laughed. Nervous he says. I let him know that if I was more familiar with which doors led to the outside of his office, I would have sneaked out before he came back in to exam me. He was the one laughing when I told him that a few nights before, I had watched Arnold Schwarzenegger very easily and gingerly break a guys neck on an airplane and I didn't want my neck broken. Instead of treating me like a bonafide nut job, this doc had his chuckle and proceeded to explain why breaking a neck barehanded would be really hard to do and how he would tend to go after the knee if he wanted to hurt someone. We then had an understanding. He could have a go at my neck, but stay away from my kneecaps.

Naturally, this fear always reared its ugly head every time I had to take one of my fur-kids to the vet as well. Even for a run-of-the-mill yearly vet check and shots, I was sweaty handed and half sick myself. Dread filled me the day I asked Chris if Sugar's neck glands looked puffy to him too. I just cried once the day Doc Jenny called and told me it was lymphoma. I was terrified, but God gave me something that day I did not expect. He gave someone who had spent a lifetime in fear of everyone wearing a white coat, a spirit of confidence that we would use to fight this with all we had in us. I sat in Docs office that evening with my Mom deciding how this battle would begin. Sugar woke each morning with the spirit of ten hounds and then some. I was there for every needle stick, for every chemo treatment, for every poison-pill-laced dog treat, for every good day and for every bad one. She showed no fear, therefore neither could I. That little hound put her faith and trust in me and for the first time in my life, I fully put my faith and trust in God. Even though my darling girl had to leave me that rainy morning in June, she lives today in what she did to my life. I believe God knows just how to speak to us and He spoke volumes to me through a dog. I clearly remember the night that lovely hound stole my heart and I remember that same heart being broken the day she left. I'm grateful for every minute I spent with her and I've come to realize it's no accident that dog spelled backwards is God.  

To Lead a Dog's Life

I've always loved dogs and suppose you could say I was born with the gene if there is such a thing. My dad never met a dog he didn't like and I don't remember a dog that didn't love my dad. I mean no offense in admitting this, but if I visit your home, chances are I will be more taken by your dog than your children or grandchildren. A previous co-worker of mine who enjoyed astrology, handed me a paper one day that she had printed about the Chinese zodiac. It was no big surprise to find that I'm not a rooster, rabbit, or any of those other animals. I am the dog, not the bounty hunter guy, but a loyal, honest, trustworthy, yet temperamental, narrow-minded, and stubborn dog according to this zodiac. Whether you put any confidence in that kind of thing or not, I don't mind being the dog at all. In fact, the life of leisure our hound leads proves that often "being treated like a dog" is pretty darn sweet!

It's very ironic that although I had no previous interest in becoming a runner, the only dogs I've shared my adult life with, were born to run. We raised two dalmatian puppies, Duchess and Lady, who were sisters out of the same litter. If you've ever had a Dal, you should very well know they aren't "porch dogs" but tireless runners. Historically, these dogs worked as "coach" dogs running along with the stagecoaches, clearing the paths for and protecting the horses. Young dalmatians will run themselves to detriment if you're not careful. They are not sprinters, but marathoners or ultras. I was just as easily fascinated with our greyhounds, Luke and Sugar, also siblings out of the same litter. An ancient breed of sight hound with a fascinating history, greyhounds are natural born sprinters who can take off in explosive bursts. There is no "building up" to top speed for a greyhound, it's literally BOOM and they're gone! If you've ever had a retired-racing greyhound in your family, you've seen the happy face of a hound running at full speed and it's obvious they are doing what they love.

If we were only as smart as our dogs, the world would be in order. They plainly and simply do what they were born to do and couldn't be happier. Now, you're going to balk at this statement, but I really think we humans were born to run too. Maybe some of us were meant to be sprinters like the greyhound, marathoners like the dalmatian or possibly some of us are like a pug and were made just to take a spin around the block, buggy-eyed, with our tongue hanging out. Where ever I fit in with my running, I'm going to take a lesson from my dogs and enjoy it. God did not put dogs here to be chained to a tree and I don't believe He put us here to be chained to a desk in front of a computer, so by all means, act like a dog and get out and run!