The past 10 days in Ohio have been
for the most part unseasonably warm, and the leaves slow to change to their
autumn hues. But in the last three or four days we've been treated to a
riot of color as the trees have finally begun to break into their rich golds
and yellows; deep, almost purplish, reds; and my favorite of all, a shimmering
color that's too soft to be red, yet too vibrant to be orange; I've decided
it's God's Own Red, and it takes my breath away every time I see it.
Our Ohio place of residence was the
Lock 30 Woodlands RV Resort, "officially" located in Lisbon but
actually closer to tiny Elkton. It may be the nicest campground we've
ever stayed in, with all of the campsites forming a single-file ring around a
huge partially wooded infield. I'm a little too spoiled to declare it perfect,
as we had only intermittent cell phone service and no cable TV, but there was
WiFi, a spotless laundry, a game room with pool, foosball and arcade games, and
a library.
And there was Blackjack. When
we first arrived, I was a little suspicious of the large black dog that
wandered around the grounds. Since campgrounds are usually very strict
about dogs being on leash, I assumed that he must be a stray, or a wayward
resident of some nearby farm. But after observing him a couple of days, I
noticed that he made rounds, visiting select campsites, hanging out for a brief
period, then moving on. One day as I left the laundry, he loped over
towards me and began to follow me back towards our site. Knowing that he
might not be welcomed by our own pooch, Maggie Muggins, I turned to him and
firmly said, "No. You stay." To my amazement, he
obeyed.
A few hours later, Greg and I were
sitting outside with Maggie when the black dog, quietly and with bowed head,
began pacing back and forth at the entrance to our site. It was as if he
were asking permission to visit. What a polite dog (if a dog can be
polite)! We called to him; slowly and cautiously, he approached us.
But Maggie would have none of it! She strained at the end of her chain,
barking and growling, defending her little territory against this
intruder. So the black dog made a dignified retreat (if a dog can be
dignified), as if to say, "I do not go where I am not wanted. There
are plenty of others who welcome me and I don't need to waste my time."
I was sorry for the snippy behavior
of my pet, so I followed the dog until we were out of Maggie's sight, then
called to him. He immediately lay down and rolled over which, if you are
a dog lover, you know is the dog's way of signifying that he's not a threat and
doesn't consider you to be one either. I petted the huge head and rubbed
the belly and as he turned to face me, saw that he had only one eye.
"Poor old fellow," I thought, "what's your story?"
His collar said that he was Blackjack, and listed an address that looked
familiar; perhaps the address of the campground itself. Greg came over
then, and the two of them had a brief visit, before Blackjack made off for the
rest of his rounds.
Next day I was at the laundry when
one of the workers drove up in a golf cart, and who should be her passenger,
but Blackjack. So I asked her about him, and was told that he was
"sort of the campground dog." As to the eye and the slight
limp, I was told that in his younger days, Blackjack was an inveterate chaser of
cars, who liked to pretend to bite at the tires. But one winter day, the
truck that he was chasing slid on a patch of ice, and Blackjack was hit.
Badly injured, he ran off into the woods -- to die, they thought, and though
they searched and called, he was not to be found. But two days later,
Blackjack came back. It took a while for him to mend from his injuries,
and his blinded eye had to be removed, but he did recover, and his tire-biting
days are long past. Nowadays, Blackjack trots alongside certain vehicles,
occasionally barking, noisily, happily, but always at a safe distance.
I suppose Blackjack's story is much
like the story many of us could tell. We engage ourselves in foolish
pursuits, the possible negative consequences of which are so obvious to
practically everyone but ourselves. Sometimes we encounter suffering and
pain -- and not necessarily of the physical kind. The wisest among us
learn from the experience. But the wisdom is in two parts: one part is
the specific lesson learned; one part is in the approach to the lesson.
Dogs have the right approach -- they may appear to possess human virtues such
as politeness and dignity, but they are incapable of the bitterness and
self-recrimination that we humans wallow in after a setback. And they
certainly are incapable of destructive wishful thinking -- you know, the one
where you think over the bad situation and analyze it to determine the specific
error that led to your injury, and then you spend lots of time wishing that you
could continue your behavior unchanged except for that one outcome. If
Blackjack were human, he may have decided that the blame lay with the icy road
conditions, rather than chasing cars!
But dogs aren't human -- thank
goodness! -- they're dogs, and they live in the here and now, rather than in
the what if and if only. I've long suspected that God gave us dogs as
examples of unconditional love, faith, loyalty, trust, living in the present
and so much more; yet I know that God's lessons come through whatever "teacher"
we are most in tune with.
I'd like to say that Maggie and
Blackjack eventually became best buddies, but that's not what happened.
Oh, there was the time that Greg ducked inside the trailer to fill Maggie's
water dish, and returned outside to find that she'd somehow slipped her
lead and was heading full-tilt toward -- you guessed it -- Blackjack. We
held our breaths as we watched the two dogs circle each other, sniffing at
pawing at each other. When we called to Maggie, Blackjack turned toward
us with a grin (if a dog can grin) and then galloped right over to where we
were standing, Maggie frisking right behind him. When it was Frosty Paw
(a frozen treat for dogs) time that night, we gave Maggie her treat, and
Blackjack one too (he happily ate both the ice cream and the paper cup!).
After they'd had their little frolic that afternoon, and later had eaten their
treats in companionable silence, Greg and I figured that Maggie had finally
warmed to Blackjack. But it was not to be. She continued to snarl
and snap whenever he offered to come on our site ... and he continued with his
philosophical acceptance of her behavior.
Good-bye, ol' Blackjack, 'til next
year! You taught me a lot in a short period of time. Good
Boy!
