Monday, March 14, 2011

Unconditional Love

Recently, I was observing my son's faithful lab, Hershey.  Daniel, my son, received Hershey for his 8th birthday.  My husband and I told Daniel that he could choose whichever pup that he wanted from the litter of five or six of the cutest lab puppies.  I had spotted a blond one that I was actually fond of, but no, Daniel insisted upon the light chocolate one, that he called 'Hershey'.  He made the right choice.

Hershey has become the best watchdog that our family has ever had.  Our neighbors all are fond of Hershey because he watches their homes, too.  No one drives by without all of us knowing!

There is one habit that Hershey has that irritates me.  He will chase and try to bite the tires of passing vehicles.  We have tried, without success, to break him from the nasty habit.  He doesn't do it all of the time.  I have noticed that it is mostly when one of the family members are outside.  Then Hershey becomes this fearless maniac of a dog who goes after the tire of the passing car, trying to attack it.

It was during one of these recent episodes that it dawned on me why he was doing this stupid behavior....he calls himself protecting us from this foreign object.  He is ready to protect HIS OWN at no thought of his own life.  He jumps at that tire with only one objective on his mind:  stopping it from bringing any harm to his family.  We didn't ask Hershey to get the stranger to protect us, and Hershey didn't consult us on the matter, either. 

I realized as a mother, I am sometimes like that hard-headed dog!  I jump in to protect my own without their permission.  I want to keep them from making mistakes and chancing them getting hurt in the process.  I am always on the lookout for those that I may deemed as invading our family territory.  And, just like that faithful lab who does this out of his love for us, my family sometimes find me a little irritating.  They didn't ask me to protect them and wish that I would just stop being so protective and foolish.

Not long ago, I read an article comparing a dog's loyalty to that of God's.  So maybe being somewhat like that lab isn't so bad afterall.