Jake, The Good Dog

Several years ago...well, more like 18 years ago...I had 4 young children.

One of them was a newborn, premature baby who had just come home from 7 weeks in the NICU. I was responsible for keeping him all of the children alive, but this tiniest one? I had to nurse him approximately 38,000 times a day. I also was responsible for giving him 4 different medicines at 4 different times each day. He slept and napped wearing an apnea monitor. When that thing went off, it was like the house was on fire.

So it only makes sense that, on a hot August day, when I was trying my best to just survive...Jim brought home a puppy.

And oh my goodness...I wanted to kill Jim.

And I did not want to like that dog, but CUTENESS.

He was a golden Lab...almost white...big ol' paws and a happy, wagging tail. My kids were head-over-heels in love with him.

We named him Jake, and he was a good dog. He tolerated most of us, but he loved Jim best of all. And he loved being outside. We had a little creek that ran beside our house, and he loved nothing more than to play and run and splash and swim and dig in it. When Jim was out in the yard, Jake was right beside him, step by step.

When I took Jake outside...he took off. Every.single.time.

WHERE IS HE GOING?

Yes, Jake was a good dog in many, many ways. And he was a bad dog in only one way.

He barked.

I mean, he barked incessantly.

If he was awake and breathing, he barked approximately once per second. I'm not even kidding. He made himself hoarse on numerous occasions. Jim bought one of those bark collars that would shock Jake when he barked.

I know. I hated it, too., but we were at our wit's end with Jake.

One of the neighbor ladies came over one day to complain about Jake's barking. She told Jim that she was pregnant, and the constant barking bothered her.

Stand in line, sister.

She said that she had called to report it to the police. She told Jim that when the policeman came, the two of them stood outside our fence, and that Jake barked the entire time.

Ummm hello? Stranger-danger.

The police officer was really nice. He understood about dogs...how they, you know, BARK.  He just asked us to try and keep it under control at night.

The collar didn't work on Jake. Jim didn't want to fry Jake's little doggy brain, so he didn't have it turned up high enough...and the low voltage didn't seem to bother Jake at ALL.

The only thing that DID work was to throw a small rock (pebble) into Jake's dog pen and hit his tin roof. The noise would kind of spook Jake, and he would stop barking for a little while. This was a great solution and all, but it did require that a person GET UP OUT OF THE BED to take care of it.

Jim started leaving a little pile of these small rocks by our front door. And in the middle of the night, or whenever Jake was barking, he would get up and go outside...and throw a rock over into Jake's pen in the backyard. When it hit the roof, Jake would stop barking.

Poor Jake. :(

Well, at one point, Jim noticed that Jake had a swollen part on one of his legs, and took him to the Vet. The Vet said it was cancer. He told Jim that he could do surgery and treatments and it MIGHT prolong his life a LITTLE, or we could just bring him home and love him, and let him play until he couldn't. He wasn't uncomfortable or suffering in any way.

At this point you need to know that Jim loves dogs, he does...and he does consider them to be part of our family...to a point.

The point being that they are DOGS.

We brought Jake home...and Jake continued to bark.

And bark and bark and bark.

And one day, Jake got bitten by a snake...right in the place on his leg that was swollen. And y'all won't believe this, but his cancer went away! It did!

Jake lived a long time and he was happy. One day, he went to spend a week with Jim's brother. Jim's brother had a small saw mill, and he had the idea that Jake could roam around the plant and be the "plant dog," and get loved on by everyone.

That worked for 3 days before Jake met an untimely death that involved a fork lift.

And let's just leave it at that.

We told Joshua that Jake died of old age. Don't judge.

So, the other day, we were driving back from Logan and Morgan's place. Joshua was sitting up front with me. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Joshua was staring up at the sky, deep in thought. And then...completely out-of-the-blue, he asked me, "do you think Jake is getting on God's nerves yet?"

"The LORD is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack." Psalm 23:1