All three kids lounge in the stroller, and Nelly, the black, curly-haired, shedding, food-stealing, child-loving, sixty pound Aussiedoodle, trots ahead down the logging road skirting the edge of town, keeping us safe from unknown smells as we search for a garage sale.
From across a field comes a stray dog, meeting us at the side of the road. It has the build of a lab, hair of a retriever, and color of an Irish setter. Its tail is bobbed, and since that’s uncommon for the breeds mostly likely in its pedigree, we assume it was the result of an accident. But not a recent one. The dog is healthy, friendly, and collared, though without tags. He and Nelly give each other the obligatory hind-quarters sniff, and as we continue our walk, the new dog follows along.
I look back across the field the dog has come from and see no one. I hear no voices calling, no whistles as we inadvertently lead the dog away. For all we know the dog is returning home, not leaving it.
Were it not for the obvious difference in breeding, this dog could be Nelly’s brother. They have the same I’m-not-with-those-people-but-I’ll-never-leave-them gait, walking ten or twelve yards ahead of us, always choosing to turn the wrong way at intersections and having to be called back, always appearing on the verge of abandonment, and yet, when called, always veering to the correct course.
And every time we come to one of those intersections and it looks as if the new dog will leave us, the kids call out, “Nelly! Red Dog! Come back!” And they do.
The strange part is that each time “Red Dog” comes back, I’m relieved.
Its strange because I used to not like dogs. It's strange because I never had a dog when I was a child, because as an adult I used to think them dirty, and a nuisance, and -- in my days of hard-hearted pragmatism -- a waste of resources, financial and otherwise. In short, I did not think dogs worth loving.
My wife got Nelly as a puppy not long before I met her. "The Dog," as I still often refer to Nelly, was nothing more than baggage brought into my marriage. But over time I got used to her, and as I got used to her I began to train her, and as I trained her she began to love me, and as she loved me I began to love her.
Should I be ashamed that she had to love me first?
When we finally find the garage sale we’ve been searching for, my wife looks over the merchandise while I stay near the street with the stroller and the dogs, and it’s now that Red Dog shows me that his love is not simply wanderlust, but genuine, uninhibited, and unconditional affection. He presses his long-haired bulk against my legs and twists his face up into my hands, licking my fingers. Nelly, jealous of this attention, is not a licker, and for the first time in my life I wish she was. I wasn’t ready before. I would’ve pulled my hands away and washed them before. But apparently I’m now ready to accept this love, though I had no idea I was able until this moment. I knew I was slowly developing a stronger affection for dogs in general, but this is different, stronger.
I don’t want this dog to leave. I’m going to miss this dog.
My wife makes a few small purchases for the kids, and on we go, circling back through town toward home. Red Dog “leads” the way, Nelly’s wingman. And I know the closer we get to home, the sooner we will have to part with Red Dog. We stroll into our front yard, and as the children climb from the stroller, Red Dog joins Nelly in sniffing the grass and the children’s toys and the front porch, and I know if I were to hold the front door open for him, he would follow us inside.
But of course, I don’t. We all go inside, leaving Red Dog to sniff around the junipers lining the front walk. And the next time we look outside, he’s gone.
I haven’t seen him since.
Again, should I feel ashamed for taking years to offer Nelly the same love I offered so immediately to Red Dog? Granted, Nelly was not only high-energy as a pup, but disobedient. But without my struggles with Nelly, could I have loved Red Dog? Probably not. And without Red Dog, would I now fully appreciate Nelly’s love for me? Probably not.
But the greater question is this: Did my lack of love for Nelly at the beginning have any correlation with my ability to love people? Perhaps. As Solomon says in Proverbs 12:10, “A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, / But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.” Does Nelly lick up the crumbs from my table in more ways than one?
Whether or not there really is a correlation, I can say that my slow and painful flight from steely-eyed pragmatism has perfectly coincided with my growing love for dogs. And, I hope, for people. But, as I've come to realize, my love for other people is not something I can objectively judge, as is my love for dogs. I can only recognize such love by its fruit. And, in this fallen world, people don't always return the love they’ve been given.
Dogs, however, usually do.
