There are few of God’s giftings for our earthly pleasures and uses that exceed a really good dog. My daughter Laura’s dog Fuzzner, is such. As I write she’s challenging the two, thousand-pound, long-legged, brown intruders browsing willow on our property uninvited. To her single-focused reasoning, they’re grave threats to the family she guards with a jealously that over the years has never relaxed or relented. Even the young neighbor kids who live across from us at the end of the rural road, whom she no doubt recognizes perfectly after years of their coming over to play with our children, she would most forcibly keep from our yard if she were not restrained by her running line. When our kids leave our yard to play at their place, Fuzzner strains at the end of her tether, watching her charges at a distance, barking her worried bark with no let-up until they return to her safe and secure.

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