My Dog and Me and God

I have a dog named LC which stands for Last Chance but is pronounced Elsie. Like the cow. She was abused before we got her. I would assume it was because she ate furniture. She was 3-4 months old when she came to live with us and ate two rocking chairs, a dining room table and two chairs there, a loveseat, the carpet, and one sofa. She finally grew out of that phase.

She is MY dog although she will now allow my husband to do things for her. It is our opinion that the father/husband in her first house must have beat her and he probably used a broom. It took a year for her to stop shaking when our father/husband came home.

She was supposed to be a lap dog but she got too big. She still fits on my lap, but not very well. She still loves it there, but my lap can't take it for long. She is a mixed breed and her body is very long and her legs are very short and she mostly looks like kindergarten drawing of a dog.

She is, however, very cute. When her ears are perked up, she looks very smart. Right now she cannot perk her one ear. She has ears that are in some way odd and make her prone to ear infections. I'm used to ear infections and have spent hundreds of dollars over the years on curing them with over the counter and prescription medicines.

This time is different. One half of her outer ear is swollen and filled with fluid. It is so heavy that she can't perk her ears up at all. Well, her other ear perks, but the fluid filled one can't. This started on Friday. In the morning she was fine and I put the cleaning stuff in her ears and all was well. After dinner when I went to pet her head, her ear was all horrible. So I will be spending more money when the vet is back in his office during the week.

My dog thinks that I can and should do everything. I am the person in charge of the food and water and mostly the treats. I can get and dispense cookies and rawhides. I am the one who brings new squeaky toys into the house. I'm the one who plays chase and goes for walks. I'm the one who controls her world. And so she thinks I am the one who has injured her ear.

She is slinking around the house. She won't come when I call. She won't go outside and go to the bathroom. She is miserable and it is all my fault – in her eyes (ears?). When I ask if she needs to go outside, she puts her ears back flat against her head (that part still works) and gets low and doesn't make eye contact. She looks like an abused wife. And all it makes me want to do is kick her. I don't. I know she is miserable. And I know I didn't make her have bad ears.

Is this how we treat God? Things go wrong and we blame him and why isn't he fixing it and fixing it right now? Isn't this all his fault? We did things like overeat and smoke and drink and drive impaired, but hey – isn't God supposed to take care of us?

My dog can't figure out that scratching and digging in her ears is not good for her. I make her stop when I'm home and catch her at the behavior. I use the over the counter stuff to ameliorate the symptoms. But even still, sometimes it turns into a full blown infection. I know this and take care of her the best I can.

I wonder if God, the head honcho, the dude or dudette running the universe, Supreme Being, science, whatever you want to call the thing that makes the chaos be controlled in knowable ways, that one. I wonder if he/she/it ever feels the same way about us that I'm feeling right now about my dog.

Yeah, things aren't always nice. Life is full of stuff that can irritate or hurt or even kill. But that doesn't mean that the overseer is uncaring or unfeeling. Just that you have to wait.

The vet will be in on Monday.