Can't We All Just Get Along

You see here two of the three pets that occupy my house. The one you don't see is the cat, in fact, no one sees him but my husband and me. I have to tell you about what happened late last week. Now you must understand that generally speaking I can have all three animals in the same room without any chaos as long as the cat stays on top of something (chair, couch, hearth,coffee table, etc).

But for some reason something exploded last week. I am in the back of the house in my office (a puppy free zone) and I hear Sassy (my 11 pound Boston Terrier) literally barking her head off. This is not at all uncommon since she has gotten older. If she wants it, she barks for it. Anyway, the barking became MOST annoying so I went to see what the matter was. That's when I witnessed more chaos than is normal for any household.

I walked into the den and there was Squirt (the yellow lab) running full tilt after Shadow the cat. I mean Marley has nothing on this dog. They would run around the sectional sofa and then take a smaller turn around the coffee table. I have never seen any two animals run that fast.

My first plan of attack was to try to grab the 85 pound lab. I couldn't even catch her as she ran by she was going that fast (did I hear a sonic boom just then?). Time for plan B, rescue the cat. Another bad idea. Squirt finally "treed" Shadow behind the huge potted tropical tree, so I thought that I would just walk up and pick the cat up and take him to safety. When I reached for him two things happened, Squirt lunged for him because she just knew I was taking her play toy away, and the cat tried to bite me instead of the dumb dog.

Well, in all of this confusion, the poor, traumatized cat made a run for the back of the recliner (you know, that flap of material they have in the back to make them easy to repair). Now I have a cat roaring (I didn't know cat's could make that sound) from inside the recliner and Squirt trying to figure out how to get him out.

In runs our rescuer, the 11 pound Boston, Sassy. She positions herself between Squirt and the cat as if to say, "Enough already!" Sassy is not only small, but she has VERY small bones and deformed legs due to the malnutrition she suffer as a puppy in the puppy mill, yet just like David facing Goliath, she was going to put an end to this one way or the other. When Squirt tried again to get to the cat in the back of the recliner, Sassy growled and snapped at her even though she has very few teeth left (did I say she was 12?). That's all the reason Squirt needed to back off and go lay in her bed.

I know what Sassy did was more out of instinct than knowledge because she thinks she is Squirt's mother. She was just correcting her puppy. But think about it.

How many times are we the smallest one in the room and God calls on us to stand in the gap. Sassy didn't know she was the smallest one (she never has, hence the name). She just knew that something was wrong and it wasn't going to get right unless she stood up.

I learned a lesson that day about standing in the gap when God call me to. See, when He sends me, I am the biggest dog in the room. Thanks Sassy.