Puppy love teaches us as we matureWhen we picked up our first black Lab, whom we named Byron, the veterinarian who cared for him explained that Labs often behave like puppies into their third and fourth years.

He encouraged us to be patient with our dog. He knew we hadn’t owned dogs for several years and might have forgotten how puppies often behave. The last dog we had raised had lived for a long time and in her mature years she had always been well mannered, consistently obedient and appropriately calm.

In his first two years, our Lab pup grew to be a large dog, weighing around 100 pounds. His disposition was athletic, playful and devoted to us. My wife and I became very fond of him and were both amazed and amused by his behavior. One of his favorite toys was an old tire that came off our Toyota. I would roll it downhill across our yard and he would chase it, tackle it, and bring it back to me, carrying it up off the ground in his mouth!

At times, we were annoyed by his behavior. The manse we lived in had outdoor carpeting permanently applied to our back porch and steps with thick adhesive. Byron found a loose end and in one day – while we were away at the church – he peeled the entire carpet off the concrete, leaving it in a pile for us to clean up when we returned home. The UPS man left a new office chair I had ordered inside our fenced yard one day, where he thought it would be safe. Byron had stripped the large cardboard crate into little pieces by the time I rescued the unharmed chair 45 minutes later. Our TV screen went blank in the middle of a Bronco-Cowboys game one afternoon because Byron had chewed through the cable where it entered the family room, three feet above the foundation of the house.

When he got hungry and we hesitated in feeding him, he used to pick up his stainless-steel dish and walk around our yard. If we didn’t respond to the hint, he made a terrible racket by tossing his dish up into the air and letting it bounce on our concrete patio floor. When that didn’t get our attention, he stood up at the window with the dish in his mouth and banged it on the window sill. After he destroyed two dishes and threatened to break our window, we decided to feed him when he was hungry.

I usually walked with Byron up over the mesa in back of our house at 6 a.m. most days. If I decided to sleep in, he would come to our bedroom window and paw at the screen. As soon as he heard me stir, he ran around the house to the back door and sat there long enough to see if I were up and about to come out the door with his leash. If I was not soon out the door, he raced back to our bedroom window to repeat his request. I usually found it easier and less noisy to walk him every morning at his usual early hour. Well-meaning neighbors told me it looked more like the dog was walking the man than the other way around.

A doggone good lifeLooking back, I doubt that Byron ever gave growing up much thought. Life must have seemed pretty good to him at every age. I must confess his strength and vitality were an encouragement to me and there were times I wished I were a child again. But none of us remain puppies or children except in our minds.

The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.”

Paul was particularly concerned about Christians who remained self- centered children who were insensitive to others. He encouraged us to grow into the responsibilities of life. He explained that mature love makes us patient with one another, becomes kind rather than overbearing, is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Mature love, he wrote, “does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (13:5- 7).

As I think back on Byron’s puppyhood, I cannot help but to think of the childhood that sometimes gets extended into my later years and how annoying some of my behavior must be to my Master. I hope I can be as patient with my present dog as God obviously is with me!

Doug Rich is the pastor of Pioneer Presbyterian Church in Clatsop Plains in Warrenton.