A Dog, A Caring Heart……and a Lesson for All of Us!!!!!

It’s just a cute black dog.  But what happened with this black dog is a very important lesson for all of us to learn.  My son was home when our dogs starting barking like crazy.  When they did not stop shortly after they started, Rob went to investigate what was causing the commotion.

A  black lab was in front of our house, investigating our front porch.  Rob could have just opened the door and said “Scat”, or “Get out of here”, so our own dogs would stop barking; but he didn’t.  He question himself as to why the dog was in front of our house.  He opened the door and the dog ran to the driveway and turned around.  Rob watched and waited. The dog stared back at him.  He stepped back inside the house.

The dog came back to the porch.

Rob took down Dusty’s leash (to which Dusty thought he was going out, only to be disappointed).  He went out on the porch and the dog let him put the leash on him as he scratched the dog’s ear.   A friend.  To make him feel more comfortable, Rob walked the dog a little bit so the dog would sense Rob as a closer friend.  After a little bit, Rob found no id collar on the dog.  He did find a rabies shot tag containing some information.  He called the hospital, and the service answered as it was after closing hours, he told the service the story, and shortly there-after the vet from the hospital called.

The vet asked for the rabies shot id tag and asked if it was a black lab and was convinced shortly thereafter that it was the right dog as a match.  Rob left his cell phone number and in a very short time a man called and stated he was the owner.  In just a few minutes longer, the man was in front of our house and picked up his dog.  The dog was missing for a few hours and they were looking for him diligently.

A great end to a story that could have ended a million different ways.  This one was a good one.

The questions I kept asking myself that made me, actually, very proud of Rob was why would he go an extra step?  If the solution to our own dogs barking was just to get the dog off the porch, he could have easily done that by just chasing the dog away, couldn’t he?

Sometimes the short-term answer to a problem does not answer the real problem at all, does it?  Sometimes it takes a little more effort to say, “Ahhhhh, this is the real problem”, and follow-up by taking the steps to solve the bigger problem at hand.  Don’t leave it, don’t put it off, take care of it.

In the end, a man and his best friend went away newly united.  That might not have happened had Rob not looked at the bigger situation and only took care of the annoyance of two barking dogs.  It may seem like a little thing to some but……..the owner certainly did not think so, of this we are positive.

He was very happy and so was the dog.

When I asked Rob about it, he really thought it was no big deal. “How else should it have gone down?”  How it should, could, and do go down in these instances, do not always align.  I just loved it was just how Rob thought it should be resolved.  ‘How else’, indeed.

Sometimes it’s not a ‘big turn’ that’s important, it need only be a ‘big turn’ to the person (or dog) it impacts…….even if it’s only one.   Going the extra step is a lesson always worth reminding ourselves……don’t you think?  Nice job Rob.

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