I have 2 mountain Cur dogs. Our dogs here are outside dogs.
When you live on a farm and dogs love to continuously roll in all things farm
related, you really have no choice but to keep them outside. We take good care
of our dogs. They run and play all day, following the tractors everywhere they
go are laying on the porch when we are inside. At night it’s a different story.
If we do not leash them, they will chase, bark and wreak havoc on the entire
surrounding area. Every night we tie them. They have their food and water, a
cozy dog house filled with hay and cushions for ultimate warmth and
comfort. Each dog has a long chain. The
youngest dog, Puppy, has a collar and a clip to tie to and the other, Jazz, has
a choke chain that clips to her leash.
The choke chain was the last thing we found that she couldn’t Houdini
out of and we have designated this chore of tying and untying the dogs to my
son.
At first light, he
goes outside and unties them. They get so excited that they run off at top
speed for another day exploring the acres.
Before bed they are fed and tied again, and this is a routine that’s
been done all their lives.
Today was a different day.
My son was late for school and asked me if I would untie the dogs for him,
so I agreed and I walked outside, unclipped Puppy and unclipped Jazz. Puppy
speeds off toward the creek while Jazz just stands there wagging her tail at
me. “Go”, I said. She stares at me. “You’re free, go on.”, I repeat. She stands there. “Fine then, just stand
there”. I walked away back into the house. Some time has gone by and I look
outside and there she still stands. I think, that’s weird. What you realize pretty quickly living on a
farm is that not only are humans’ creatures of habit, so are animals.
With this knowledge I called my husband and said “Hey, I
untied Jazz but she’s not leaving her doghouse?” He asked me how I had untied her
and I told him that I unclipped the leash from her choke chain. Sounded obvious to me. He laughed. He informed me that I had to take
off the choke chain and leave it clipped to the leash. She still felt the choke chain on her neck
and believed she was still tied so she knew she couldn’t go anywhere. What? Really? She saw me unclip the leash. It
was in my hand and I threw it to the side as she watched me. I told her to go
and she was free. She should have seen that even though the chain was still there,
it didn’t matter anymore.
Is this starting to sound familiar? It sure did to me.
Sounds like a modern-day Christian. Sounds like my plight. Jesus died and took
on the sin of the whole world. Then He rose and defeated death and sin.
Forever. You are free to go run, you’ve been unchained. The problem is we still
wear the chains of our sin like a choke collar and we may even believe we are
still tied and unable to run. You are
not. “You’re free, go on.”
