My dog Rosie

We have not had the best of luck when it comes to dogs, or pets for that matter. Danny and I neither one are big animal lovers or defender of animal rights. But growing up my family always had a dog and sometimes a cat. And children love pets.
We first got a pet in Kenya--a Kenyan mutt guard dog who was, truth be told, pretty stupid and wimpy. Danny couldn't really teach him anything and I'm not sure he would have held off any attackers. He spent most of his time trying to get with the neighbor's dog who did not want to have anything to do with him. But Josiah liked him. And so did our cat George.
Speaking of cats. . . my first "very own" pet was a cat my friend gave me for my 17th birthday which I quickly named "Baby" because I couldn't stop calling her that. She was a great cat for me, until I left for college and my brother's friends tortured it and it came to hate people and especially little children. *sigh*
In Kenya we got two kittens right after the encounter with rodents. I HATE rodents more than any other living creature on earth! But we learned the hard way not to feed them from our table. . . they became monsters who terrorized my kitchen eating my batch of homemade noodles and freshly cooked chicken. They had to go. Marian had had kittens so we kept one, which was George.
After we left Kenya we didn't have pets for awhile. But when we moved to Muncie we had promised our son Josiah he could get a dog--eventually. For the first time we were going to be home owners and he was so heartbroken about leaving Kentucky it was the least we could do.
One day Danny spontaneously called the pound and found out they had just gotten some black lab puppies. So the next day we went and picked up Sam. Josiah was so excited to get to walk him to school and show everyone HIS dog. Sam got sick within 24 hours of coming to our home. He began to vomit and have diarrhea. He was diagnosed with parvo. We questioned how much to put into trying to save a hopeless situation, but for the love of our children, and partly for Sam, we tried. We spent more than we ever thought we would on a pet. Danny learned to give him IV's of fluid and meds. We tried to give him special dog food. . . but it was pitiful and hopeless. And at 5 months pregnant I couldn't take it after five days. So we gave him back to the pound, who also tried to sustain him. But he died. It was traumatic.
We feared we would never be able to have another dog because our home was infected with parvo. But just a few short months later (when I now had a three month old nursing baby) we found an add for free lab/mix puppies. And so we bleached our house to death, threw away anything we feared could still be contaminated, and went and picked out a sweet little black puppy with one little patch of white on her chest.
We named her Rosie. We've had her for two years now and she has been wonderful! She is truly a part of our family and I don't know what we would do without her. Growing up our pets were mostly outdoor pets. But I am learning a whole new dimension to having an indoor pet. Rosie is crate-trained and she is very obedient, quiet, and gentle. She has never hurt anything, especially not our children! She obeys commands even from them! She loves to take walks and road trips and she sleeps at the top of our stairs. She stands at our front windows and whines to be let out to chase the squirrels (which we sometimes let her do--she's never caught one yet!) She knows before I do when someone we love is coming because her back end begins to shake uncontrollably. She is most hard to control when there are people she wants to greet--she LOVES people. She fits right in with the Smith family! She lets our kids "wrestle" her and climb all over her. She knows which seat to clean out (Noah's) when we let her back in the kitchen after dinner. She's proved to be a great asset to keeping my kitchen floor clean! Occasionally I catch the children sharing their food with her, even though they're not supposed to!
Recently Danny took her to use as a sermon illustration. He gave her the command to "stay" as an object lesson of how we are commanded to "abide" or "stay" in/with Jesus in 1 John. I was so proud of Rosie that day! She obeyed, even though there were a lot of people who I'm sure she would have loved to greet.
Rosie's practically perfect and the best dog ever! We love Rosie, and I pray we have many more years with her!