Smart & Worthalot

Her name is Maddy. She was the last mutt in the litter, just a common blackish dog. I had picked out a nice brown & black sister of hers and we named her Muffen because she looked like a chocolate muffen that I loved. Maddy was named "maddy" for no apparently reason other than in her silent look way she seemed like a "maddy".


At one year old, Maddy got knocked up my almost every horny dog in our neighborhood before I could get her fixed and my irritation with her grew. One rainy night we heard whimpering on the front porch and I peered outside to see a wet puppy in the rain with a wide-eyed Maddy looking her it like it was some strange piece of poop that was alive or something. Nothing had come out of her before that made such strange noises and Maddy looked confused. She was a crummy mother, within a month she was done with those puppies and we had to make sure they were getting enough milk from her. I had never seen a dog be so careless with their offspring and around that time I started calling her "a dumb worthless dog".


Soon that adjective seemed to associate her name whenever I had to deal with her. When I stepped in her poop I proclaimed "Maddy, you dumb worthless dog, quit pooping in my front yard!" When Muffen disappeared one day I sadly commented "great my favorite dog disappeared and I'm stuck with this "dumb and worthless dog". It seemed every time I was irritated with Maddy I would state "dumb and worthless" along with her name.


One day Maddy actually ate our roast beef dinner, I mean she climbed up on the table and ate the meat. I must confess I lost my temper grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and the base of her tail and flung her out the front door into our yard she spun like a frizzbie and rolled across the yard no doubt scared but otherwise unhurt...with the words "dumb and worthless dog" ringing loudly across the front lawn.

Arielle, my daughter who was probably around 9 years old looked at me horrified and ran out the door to make sure the dog was OK. For the first time in my life I saw the look of disappointment on my little girl's face concerning me. Arielle gave me a tongue lashing that went on for several minutes...I didn't feel like I could yell back for I had lost my temper after all...and I didn't like that disappointed look she was giving me. Arielle ended her speech with some sort of statement "and she is not a dumb and worthless dog" and proceeded to hug Maddy as if my insulting words would be squeezed out of her black coat.


I decided after that to change the adjective associated with Maddyf from "dumb and worthless" to "smart and worth a lot" which then would eventually be proclaimed rather quickly to "smart and worthalot" to which my daughter would grin at me approvingly. As the years went by Maddy began to change. She accepted me as the "alpha male" and didn't seem so moody. One day when we were camping I had to leave a day early. My wife reported back to me that as soon as I drove off the camp site Maddy changed. If anyone she didn't know came near the camp site she would growl and bark warning my wife that a stranger was near. "Wow" I thought to myself "she really isn't dumb and worthless after all".


The change continued...she became this sweet loving dog...guarding our home when I'm not there and sticking her nose under my arm when I'm watching TV so I'll pet her. She flops over to have her belly scratched when anyone comes near her and makes those funny noises when she is sleeping and apparently dreaming of chasing squirrels. She is over ten years old now and slowly is showing some grey around her muzzle. She still anoys me especially when she has gas and chases us all from the living room. But she is a great dog. Some time between her flying out the door and a rebuke of truth from my daughter and a decision to change from "dumb worthless dog" to "smart and worthalot" my dog did change. I will not shed a few tears when she finally is done with this life, I will bawl quite a bit for I would have lost a good friend.

She went from "dumb worthless dog" to "smart andworthalot"...I wonder how many people I have labeled in such a fashion that simply need someone to change their label? Worthless addict to troubled child of God. Cheating wife to desperate woman? Smart ass jerk to a lonely man? Am I simply trying to overlook faults & sins, white washing guilt? No. Truth is not always pleasant but always useful. What I am saying is that it takes very little effort to see the wrong in people but it takes God to look deep in the eyes of a person and see what could be.

A label can start that process. A comment of worth and be the first blow against years of neglect and even abuse. I try to watch the labels that go out from my life. One of them can end up biting me or becoming a dear friend.