Life Lessons from a Great Pyrenees [Guest post by Rachel Leitch]

This post is provided by Rachel Leitch, a friend of mine who writes at her adventure journal ProseWorthy! Be sure to check her blog out after you're done here. Her writing is very entertaining and edifying to read.

 

Quarantine hit us all out of nowhere.

What were we supposed to do with all this free time?

The only natural answer, of course, was: get a puppy.

And that’s exactly what my family did. To be fair, we’d been looking for a while. Our family dog had been showing signs of a serious illness and old age and was reaching the end of his romp. And hey, we were all at home. What better time to train a puppy?

Thanks to our mail carrier (who to this day remains one of our dog’s favorite people), we came across a litter of Great Pyrenees/yellow Labrador puppies. 

Well, what was left of a litter. Only one was left.

We couldn’t resist that white cotton ball puff in the picture. So out we drove to the house.

As soon as we rounded the corner towards the dog pen, the puppy in question squirted through the fence, ran right up to us, and flopped over for a belly rub.

“Do you think you’re going to keep him?” the lady asked.

Well, how could we not when he was staring up at us like that?

Just like that, I scooped him up and we made the car ride home. He settled in quickly and we named him Herbie.

Herbie is now two years old, and we have learned a lot about him since.

You see, we did not research his breed before we got him. Why would we need to research? We knew people who had a Great Pyrenees. A big white fluffy dog, right? That’ll be fun!

Well... yes and no.

It turns out that Great Pyrenees have a lot of quirks. In fact, there are whole shelters just for them because their quirks get them turned back in frequently.

Great Pyrenees drool. And not just a dribble here or there, thick slime wanna-be drool.

Great Pyrenees bark. Incessantly. It makes sense, because they were bred to herd and guard. Ours just doesn’t know when to stop herding and guarding.

Have you ever heard of the Pyr paw pat?  Great Pyrenees tap you to get your attention or to show affection. Except they have massive paws so a pat is likely to knock you out of your chair.

And... THE SPRING SHEDDING.

Herbie got all these best of traits from his Pyrenees roots, and added in a few of his own. Every springtime, he breaks out in rashes on his belly from springtime allergies, which he then proceeds to scratch and chew as much as possible. He turned out to be an anxious pupper who hates vet visits, baths, strange people, strange dogs, and being separated from us for more than ten minutes.

We didn’t know any of this before we got him. Would it have changed our mind even if we did know? I don’t know.

But now that we have him, even though we’ve figured out all these things... we wouldn’t dream of taking him back to the house where we found and dropping him off in the driveway.

Our acceptance of Herbie is grudging sometimes.  

But God’s acceptance of me isn’t.

(In case you were wondering when I was going to get to the main point of this post.)

I come with a lot of stuff. So do you. Stuff that has happened to me. Stuff that I’ve done to other people. Stuff that’s just stuff. Struggles that are uniquely my own.

I’m clingy and needy sometimes. I complain and whine and fuss. I make the same mistake over and over again, no matter how many times I apologize and promise never to do it again.

And I don’t have a cute fuzzy puppy face to offset all the things.

But God would still never dream of dropping me back where He found me. Even when I am at my absolute worst and not at all lovable, He doesn’t give up on me. He still loves me. He still likes me.

I can’t get past that. Can you?

Maybe I don’t want to get past it. I want to continue to be amazed by it.

So the next time one of my things rears its ugly head—something scary happens, or an old regret climbs to the surface, or a struggle I thought I’d bested strikes back, or even I just had a rough day.

I can still come home at the end of the day and know that God loves me and is still glad He chose me.

How might that change the way I view myself? How might it change the way you view yourself? 

 

Rachel Leitch discovered the book of writing when she was seven. She’s been turning pages ever since! When she’s not hidden away penning young adult historical adventures, she’s trying to fit all her reads on her shelf in a somewhat organized manner, rambling through history, daydreaming at the piano, or teaching students to be just as bookish as she is. In all her adventures, she learns how to shine brighter for the Father of Lights.

For more lessons drawn from books and movies and other stories (and to receive a free digital short story about a magical violin), follow her adventure journal at https://racheljleitch.weebly.com!