Life Lessons From a Dog: Introducing Inka

There comes a time in every person’s life when they must make a decision that will alter their lives potentially forever: the decision to introduce a dog into their day-to-day living.

We made that decision just last weekend on my birthday, after my crazy husband took me on a bus and wouldn’t tell me where we were going. A couple hours later, we arrived back at our house -- with an extra body in tow.

Inka is an almost-two-year-old dog, who is in spirit actually a deer. When people ask her breed, we generally say she’s a Chihuahua crossed with a fawn. Since she was four months old she lived in her little corner of the dog shelter, being let out twice a day for a walk. She had been adopted once, but had been mistreated in her new home, reported, and before long was back at the dog shelter. Though treated exceptionally well at the shelter, her whole life had essentially been spent in a little cage.

That is, until Justin and Lauren show up and turn her world upside-down. As if the taxi ride home wasn’t traumatizing enough, she ends up in a strange and (relatively) enormous house where everything is new and scary. We coughed; she bolted and cowered. We stood up; she bolted and cowered. We tried to pet her; she bolted and cowered. How much our little Inka has changed in the last week would take hours to type; from the first time we saw her tail wag, until now, when she barks and nibbles at our mattress if we don’t wake by at least 5:30 a.m..

Last night, Justin and I heard about a “light show” happening on the waterfront. We asked around, and got the impression that there were artificial lights that would be displayed on the water. So we grabbed our dog, grabbed some snacks, and plopped ourselves down in the sand waiting for the light show to begin.

What it turned out to be was a firework show. The biggest I personally have ever seen. On about six or seven places along the shoreline, fireworks were set off simultaneously in an amazing display of colour, light and symmetry. We were sitting right in between two launching stations.

Our poor dog. 

To say she was scared might be the understatement of the century. It broke my heart to see her bolt to one side just as a firework would go off, then bolt to the other when another erupted from the opposite side. Seeing my beautiful Inka trembling and cowering on the beach as explosions surrounded her tore at me on the inside, and brought me to tears. I instantly tried to go to her and comfort her, but initially she would just run, too distracted by the fire above her to realize that I was there. Pretty soon I got to her, wrapped my arms around her little, trembling body, and held her still while concurrently trying to cover her floppy ears. Justin quickly joined us and flanked her other side, and the three of us sat snuggled in a ball on the beach with Inka tucked in the middle, waiting out the fireworks.

Within a couple minutes after the fireworks abated, our puppy was back to her normal self, stealing the popcorn that had missed people’s mouths and landed in the sand. I was definitely more traumatized from the event than she was.

To draw a parallel is not difficult. Many of you may have even seen it coming. It’s a simple truth, how God holds us when the world explodes around us, if only we decide to stop running and let Him. He will cover us, as Justin and I did Inka. We didn’t stop the light show, but we did our best to help her through it, as much as she would allow.

It’s seems pretty basic, but as we sat on the beach and I watched our dog come back to life after her debilitating fear, I re-hashed the event in my mind. I was overcome by how badly I had wanted to protect her, take away her fear, and how at first, I couldn’t because she wouldn’t let me. She would just run.

And I wondered if I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,

for in you I take refuge.

I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings

until the disaster has passed.

Pslam 57:1