The Life of Riley

My name is Sir Riley VIII.  Everyone just calls me Riley.  I am eight years old and a black and gray dapple Dachshund.  I have had a pretty rough life.  When I was about six years old, my human mommy died.  I was really sad.  Then my human sister took me to live with her and her seven year old son.  That was not a good idea because the boy was pretty rough with me and I bit him.  So my sister gave me to our brother who had a son who was sixteen years old.  That kid was given full responsibility of me, but did not really know how to take care of a Dachshund and I was not happy at all.  Eventually, they gave me to the Las Vegas Hot Diggity Dachshund Club & Rescue (LVHDDCR).  

I love my foster mommy & daddy and they love me, but it wasn’t always so.  I had a bit of an attitude when I came to them.  I had double ear infections and I was in a lot of pain.  When Mommy or Daddy would try to put medicine in my ears I would bite them.  That made Mommy cry and both of them would get angry at me.  

One day a friend of Mommy’s came over and said she could help me!  I thought it would be a good thing, but it turned out to be bad.  She said that if she rolled me over on my back it would make me submissive.  Well, that may work for other dogs but it made me furious!!!  She did this almost every day for several months and I never got better, but much worse.  After I bit her hard, on a walk, she told Mommy that she couldn’t be around me anymore.  Mommy understood and I said good riddance! 

During the time the friend was trying to help me, Mommy, who is the Adoption Coordinator for LVHDDCR, was trying to find a forever home for me.  She found one in Pahrump and took me there.  I was there for six days.  The man did not tell Mommy that he was going to leave me outside all day!  I barked and barked because it was winter and very cold!  I was trying to tell that man that I am a house puppy, not a yard dog!  Finally he called Mommy and she sent Daddy to go pick me up.  Daddy and I were SO very happy to see each other.  There was one other person who thought she wanted me, but I tried to bite her so it did not work out.  You see, I was so happy with Mommy and Daddy that I did not want to find a different forever home.  I wanted them to be my forever Mommy and Daddy.  

I was still biting Mommy and Daddy when I got angry, but Mommy said I was getting better.  She tried to talk Daddy into adopting me, but he was not sure yet.  They already had four dogs: Zoe, the big Cocker Spaniel who does not like anyone, she is 12; Ziggy, a 7 year old piebald Dachshund; Butchie, an 11 year old red and black long haired Dachshund; and Mozzie, the Chiweenie puppy that Mommy could not find a home for, so she adopted him. Daddy said the house was too full and told Mommy to keep trying to find me a home.

Mommy kept trying, but I was growing on her.  Sometimes she would send Daddy messages that pretended to be me talking and say, “Daddy, I am a good boy.  Please ‘dopt me.”  Daddy thought that was cute, but he was holding off.  You have to understand, it was not because he did not love me; we were, and are, the best of buddies.  We spend all of our time, when Daddy is home, together.  Daddy is the one who takes me to the vet and gives me a bath.  I even sleep with him.  Daddy snores REALLY LOUD, so he cannot sleep in Mommy’s room, but the snoring does not bother me.  I kind of like it.  And I get to have Daddy all to myself.  Besides, Mommy says I am a bed hog when I sleep with her and she has to sleep at the foot of the bed.  

One day, the lady who runs the rescue called Mommy and told her that if she and Daddy did not adopt me, she would have to put me to sleep.  I am smart enough to know that means I would die and I was SCARED!  I should not have been scared, though, because there is no way Mommy or Daddy would let that happen.  They love me as much as I love them!

I have a very good life with Mommy and Daddy.  I have a problem, though; I am fat.  Not just a little fat, either.  My belly almost touches the ground.  Mommy has me on a diet.  I only get one-third of a cup of diet food twice a day, which is 4.2 ounces total.  She also puts green beans in my dinner because she read that it will help me feel full without making me fatter.  I love them!  I do not get very many treats, either. 

Mommy and Daddy try to walk me but I can only walk a few feet at a time.  Mommy says I have the shortest legs of any Dachshund she has ever seen; but that’s not why I cannot walk far.  The pads on my feet are extra big and when I walk, my feet roll around.  It is very uncomfortable and it makes it difficult to walk.  Mommy and Daddy say they will keep trying because being fat is very bad for a Dachshund’s back.

Overall, I am crazy-happy about my forever home and Mommy and Daddy say they are crazy-happy to have me here.

Trials

I had an adoption event today.  It went really well and I think most of our dogs will find homes because of it.  The drive from the Petsmart on Charleston, by way of the 215, is a very calming drive and conducive to reflection; so I spent the time thinking.  I was also listening to an Andrew Peterson CD; his music is deep and thought-provoking and makes me want to be a better person.

The line of thought on my drive home was about my life and what an emotional mess I was growing up, after I got married, and while I was raising my kids.  It was one emotional rollercoaster after another.  I wanted everything and everyone (especially myself!) to be perfect and that made matters worse.  There were several circumstances that added to my inability to cope, emotionally: having lived through abuse as a kid; having atrial fibrillation from the time I was twenty, but not understanding it; living with an alcoholic; and going through premature menopause when my kids were very young.

The a-fib was misdiagnosed as supraventratachycardia (SVT) and I was told it was not life threatening.  I learned to live with it, but in the 1990’s I began to have serious panic attacks which made the a-fib worse and kept me from sleeping most nights.  It was not until December 2009 that I was told it was a-fib and that it can be life threatening, but I was put on some really good medications that help tremendously.

I soldiered through early onset menopause with no help or understanding from anyone, except my mom, who had endured the same thing.  It was horrible.  Even my doctors were in denial that it could happen to me.

So, while I endured seriously difficult times, I was still expected to hold myself together, put up with an alcoholic husband, raise my kids basically alone, and be a nice person.  I failed miserably.  I was tense, stressed, and upset all of the time.  

Then came the notorious events of September 2007-October 2010, when a certain ‘counselor’ did all in his power to destroy me, personally, and my family.  For a time, it worked.  He wreaked such havoc that certain family members did not speak to each other for months and years.  The ‘counselor’ meant everything for evil, but God took the situation that truly began out of sheer stupidity on my, and my husband’s, part and is using it to reshape us into decent human beings that He might be able to use someday.  

From April/May 2008 to the spring of 2010, I was completely broken.  There was not a speck of me that had not been touched by grief and depression.  I cannot pinpoint a moment where things began to turn around, but I believe it was the two Theology classes I took that spring and summer of 2010 that opened my eyes to Who God is and what He does with our grief and trauma.  Of all the classes I have taken at Liberty University, in my effort to earn a degree in Religion, those two classes have been the absolute best. 

Life is still such a struggle, but in December 2012, I was convicted to begin daily Bible reading and I began in Psalms.  I was struck by my reading at how worthless I feel and how untrusting I still am, of people in general and God.  That caused me to pursue reading some of Beth Moore’s books.  The one I read every day is called Believing God Day By Day.  It is a devotional book that has a passage for each day of the year.  In the reading for January 10 Beth Moore writes:

I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations, as one shakes a sieve, but not a pebble will fall to the ground.  Amos 9:9

The first ten years I spent in the Word, I believed that every doctrinal view I held was absolutely right and all others were unquestionably wrong.  I was an aerobics teacher at our church, for crying out loud.  I worked out all morning and studied Scripture all afternoon.

But one way God widened my world was by pitching me out of the gym and into the heat of a spiritual war.  I spent the next several years in intensive care with God as He began rebuilding me from the inside out so I could teach harder lessons but with a softer spirit.  Don’t be surprised if He does the same for you.

My “house” was seriously shaken.  God sifted me as I have never been sifted before and hope never to be sifted again!  I have been a believer in Christ since my teen years and as a young adult, I recommitted to living for Him.  I went to church.  I homeschooled my children because I believed that was His will.  I led a High School Awana group for six years.  And then I fell for the lies of Satan coming from a wolf in sheep’s clothing and I was sifted.  God “pitched” me out of my false sense of security and taught me lessons about myself that I hope never to forget.  I am still in God’s “intensive care” unit, but I have come far enough to see Him at work and even see that I am not the same person I used to be. 

All of this led up to my thoughts on the drive home today.  As I pondered what a hideous mess I have been all my life, I realized that I am not like that any longer; at least for the most part.  It took the complete breaking and shattering of my life for God to get my attention.  It took my completely giving up control of all aspects of my life (self, husband, children, extended family) to realize I never had control anyway.  I cannot do anything to help my alcoholic husband, except pray for him.  My children are adults; while I never knowingly or willingly tried to control them as they became adults, I did when they were kids.  But my grasp on them now is even looser than it was before September 2007.  Their choices are their own to live with, as my choices are my own. 

 

I have a long way to go.  I will never be perfect.  I will always be a flawed human being and will probably still do stupid stuff, but God has given me hope that I do have a positive future and that I might even come to believe that I have some worth in this life.  He showed me today that I am not the same person I was in 2007; I am a calmer, kinder, more tolerant person, and that is only because He took the most traumatic events of my life and allowed me to be shattered and broken so He could remake me.  I will be forever grateful.

Dreams

last night i dreamed that, as i was walking my dogs at a park, i found an abandoned blonde dachshund. she had a tag on her collar so i called the number. the man who answered said the dog had "run away." when i asked if they had tried to find her he said no, because they couldn't afford to keep her. ?? so i told him he was in luck, because there are places that can help him with the costs of food and vet care. he said he didn't want to call them. so i told him i could place the dog in our rescue and i would find her a wonderful loving home; he would just need to sign a surrender form. he didn't want to do that either. i woke up as i was trying to assure this man that it was in the best interest of his dog to surrender her rather than just abandon her.

sadly, this scenario happens all too often in this country. responsible people surrender their pet to a rescue or no-kill shelter, or find a responsible person to take them. irresponsible people abandon them to fend for themselves or put them in a kill shelter. putting them on craig's list is not much better, because some people take these dogs to use as bait dogs for fighting, or worse.

have we as a nation, grown so cold-hearted toward animals that we see them as disposable; only good for a time, but getting rid of them when they become a burden? it breaks my heart and it should break everyone's heart.

when God created humans, He told them to CARE for the earth and the animals, NOT abuse and neglect them! it is our job as human beings to be kind and caring to all: other humans, animals, and the earth.