Inspirational Faith

Please watch this very short video below. When your heart is nice and juicy and about to bleed, then carry on and read the rest of the blog.

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion." - Unknown

Faith came into my life by chance. Those kinds of circumstances never fail to remind me that I'm not in charge of my fate.

She is my living example of "I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see". We happened to be driving home when she was crossing the road one day and stopped to pick her up. It didn't mean much to me then, just a simple gesture of kindness to help out a stray dog. But, when I think about it now, tears well up in my eyes and my heart stings. For, I've grown to love her, and even my affection towards her pales in comparison to her love for me.

I don't know if she is as happy as she looks, but that face wears a smile 24/7.

She has inspired me so much. Here are just a few reasons why

• She cannot see. We've wondered if perhaps she can see shadows or something but, after some tests with shining lights in her face etc...she has no vision whatsoever. And, you would never know it.
• She has to find the bottom step on the porch by reaching out her paws, but, oddly, knows when she's reached the top. This leads me to believe that the girl can count. 1-2-3-4-5...top!
• When we go on walks, she stays on the road and runs ahead with the rest of my motley pet parade.
• She knows where all the water holes are on our walk. Does she count steps here too? Or can she smell the water? Either way, it impresses the heck out of me.
• Hours upon end, she plays with Emma. When the rest of us have had enough of her endless energy, Faith continues to allow that crazy boxer to chase her through the yard, lick her face, and chew on her neck, all the while, wearing that darling smile.
• She has gotten off the path a few times on our walks and fallen way behind. And then, without fail, she catches up to us or finds her way home by herself.
• She makes us laugh. It's just awful, however, because the laughter usually comes after she's run into somebody's leg or fallen off the deck or when she does that confused-head tilt when she's listening to our activities in the house. We're just hideous sometimes.
• She reacts differently to different people. She knows us by our energy, not our outward appearance. This proves so many things to me...not the least of which that we are souls with bodies, not bodies with souls.
• When I feed her in the mornings, I'm met with anticipation and excitement, not because I'm carrying a cup of food but because she knows she's about to get a shower of affection. She hungers more for this than anything I feed her.

It's almost more than I can stand sometimes when I watch her frolicking happily through the fields. My mind will, many times, wonder what her life would have looked like had we not stopped and picked her up that day. Frightened, alone, hungry, friendless, unwanted, unloved and abandoned. In the stark contrast of her life now with all the joy and happiness she radiates, I can't help but feel such gratitude.

Oh how it makes me appreciate my own salvation. What a pitiful state my life would be if I'd just been left by the side of the road in my dark pit of sin. Thankfully, somebody stopped and picked me up, and brought me home and loved me despite my afflictions.

Sometimes she sits for long periods of time and stares out at the world in which she cannot see with her eyes.

She knows it's there.

She can smell the air and the grass.

She can feel the breeze on her face, the sun warm on her back.

She can hear the birds and the footsteps of us around her.

She senses our presence and knows us, not by our appearance, but by our energy and scent.

She relies on us to sustain her life and knows from where her food, shelter and love comes.

I believe she can see in her dreams. She can see a world that we know not of. I believe that, in our own ability to see, sometimes we are blind to the bigger reality of life. I think our eyes sometimes fool us into thinking that what we see is what we get. We rely on what is in front of us and don't depend upon God for our existence.

Faith has been a beautiful motivator, a little light in my life. Everything happens for a reason. I'm sure she has many more lessons to teach me and I look forward to them all.

Faith's rescue

I posted this on my Freedom blog but thought I'd post it here too.

I have never been superstitious about the number 13. Its a number. Today, however, I think I'll associate it with good luck, not bad.

We started off the day fairly normal. The kids left for school, Rodney and I had our coffee and breakfast together, the dogs went outside, and we started getting ourselves ready for the day. It was only 14 degrees when we woke up so we were bundling up extra tight before we headed out.

I went out to feed the little orphan calf, who, by the way, I've decided to name Damit. (I know I spelled it wrong but this way it isn't actually cursing). The reason I've named him this is because I was constantly going, "Damit, stop it! Get your head out of my butt, Damit. Damit, that hurt!" and so on.

So, back to my story. I was doing my chores... emptying the huge block of ice from the goat water bucket so that I could fill it with fresh, unfrozen water, giving the bunny feed and water, trying to make Damit eat some sweet feed instead of just milk by shoving it in his mouth, "Here Damit, eat this".

I noticed only Sophie and Charlotte were with me so I started calling Emma. It was only a couple minutes and she came bounding through the yard. It occurred to me that Faith was not with her but this isn't too unusual, it generally takes her a few more minutes to get home from wherever the heck they go, so I just kept right on about my business.

Since I was already bundled up, I decided to make the most of the morning and take my camera out to shoot some pictures. This is when the plot thickens.

I was going to go out in the woods. My mind had been made up that I wanted to hike through the trees before all the snow was gone. But, a little voice said, "you'll have to go through the goat pen to get out there and Damit will follow you the whole way and it's not going to be fun. So I made the very conscious choice to walk across the pond dam.

Sophie, Charlotte, Emma and I headed out. They are always so excited to go anywhere, even if it's just to the mailbox.

The pond was frozen over. I thought maybe I'd see some ducks to take pictures of but there were none. I threw some rocks out onto the ice, it makes the coolest sound when it hits and I wanted to see just how thick the ice was. Emma started eyeballing the rocks I was throwing as if she might be contemplating fetching them so I figured I'd better stop or she might just go out there.

We walked a little further, my mind on a million things when I spotted Emma out on the ice. "Emma, come back! Don't go out there!" I started to freak a little because Emma is not one for listening. "Momma has a cookie Emma!"

This is how well she listens.

Then it dawned on me she was headed towards something. I couldn't make it out. At first I thought, "oh no, a duck is frozen to the water or something". So I used the lens on my camera to zoom in and see what it was.

The picture is blurred because as soon as I realized what it was, I went into rescue mode. Faith had fallen through the ice. She was barely above the water could not get a grasp on anything to get herself out.

I don't know if I've ever blogged about my inability to handle emergency situations or not but, I'm telling you right now...it hasn't gotten any better with age. My brain went to another place and my body went with it. I started running, no particular direction, just running. I started to rationalize that I was panicking and trying to calm myself so I could think of what to do.

Call Rodney, Call Rodney. It took me what seemed like an eternity to figure out how to even make a call but I finally got him on the phone. "Faith, gasp gasp, is in the pond!!" He said, "I'm coming!"

He was just down the road in the tractor so I knew he would be there quickly. Then I thought, "Call 911, Call 911". I really had no idea at this point how we were going to get her out. The 911 operator took my frantic call and said somebody was on their way.

Then it dawned on me, finally, "we need the boat, we need the boat!"

I called Mom and Dad and took a few years off of their lives. My voice in a frenzied pitch, "Faith fell through the ice! We need the boat we need the boat!!"

She was barely hanging on. I kept saying her name, screaming her name, telling her not to give up. At one point I contemplated going in after her but that same little voice that sent me to the pond, said "don't you dare!"

Mom and Dad showed up in the Yukon and Rodney showed up with the boat on the tractor (he handles these things much better than me). He and Dad put the boat in the pond and then Dad pushed Rodney out onto the ice. We had no ore, so Rodney used a piece of metal that he plunged in the ice and dragged himself and the boat to where she was and pulled her out.

Once he had her in the boat, he couldn't pull himself the rest of the way to shore because of the thickness of the ice. By this time the rescue workers had arrived and had a rope that they used to pull to boat to shore.

We wrapped her in my coat, loaded her in the Yukon and brought her home. I called my vet to find out the best way to warm her. They told me to put her in a luke warm bath then get her dry and gradually warm her up. At first it seemed perilous. She was ridged and shivering, unable to even keep her head out of the bath water. I had to make smart decisions to keep her from going into shock (although she might already have been) and get her body temperature back up.

Once I got her somewhat dry, I wrapped her in a towel and blanket and sat and held her closely. We rocked in the rocking chair and I assured her that everything would be fine. She shivered for a very long time but I had learned from searching google that this was actually a good thing. When the shivering quieted a bit, I laid her on the couch with a heating pad. This is when I took her temperature. It was only 93〫. I got a little more aggressive with the warming until she was back up to normal temp.

Once she was warm through and through, I gave her a little something to eat and let her have a nice long nap in front of the fireplace.

I'm gonna start listening a whole lot more closely to that little voice. For some reason it seems for me to want to keep Faith around, that's for sure. I've always said that things happen in threes. This should be number three. I rescued her from being abandoned. I rescued her from the well. Now, I've rescued her from the frozen pond.

Thank you to my husband and my parents that jumped to her aid. And thanks to the rescue workers for their efficiency and speed in getting here... all for the life of a little, blind dog.

Confinement

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. With Ivy being completely deaf, we knew she would have to be restricted to the yard and leashed when on walks etc... I figured if Emma was confined to the yard, that Ivy would stay put as well. Wrong. 

My other handicapable dog, Faith, who is blind but gets around with Vulcan-hearing (Rodney says she can hear a flea fart) and a heightened sense of smell (even for a dog) sometimes goes on ventures outside the safety of the yard. Miss Ivy decided to join one evening and about gave us a stroke. 

So, we bought a collar for the invisible fence (or force field as we call it). It's as big as her head and I was reluctant to put it on her at all. One thing I've learned is that a deaf dog (or blind) has a much increased "sixth sense" and will very quickly pick up on your mood and energy. Dogs do this anyway but, a dog that is missing one of their other 5 senses just seems to have an increased ability (or need) to be much more in tune with emotions. And guess what? I am a extremely emotional person. Not only am I having to train a deaf dog to obey but am having to learn to keep my emotions in check for her sake. 

I had to dig down and confidently place the collar on her neck. No pity. No angst. No fear. Calm assertiveness. And she received it happily. 

I've not witnessed her testing her boundaries yet but she has remained in the yard since putting it on. This morning I walked to the shed (which she normally would follow me) but she went as far as the oak tree and sat down and waited for me to return. I assume she figured out where the boundary is in that direction (only about 5 more feet from where she stopped). 

Please understand that it is for her safety. The "correction" that the collar gives is not painful and is certainly a better alternative than having her lost or injured. And, once they learn their boundaries, they rarely test them again. I only mention this because I've had online rants from strangers after they've seen Emma in her collar. *rolling my eyes*. 

We've also not had a potty accident in a week! Hooray for progress!!!