The Dog I Didn't Want. . .

During the first 25 years of my life I had a single dog. Her name was Taffy. She was a Beagle, and she died from Cancer on the night I graduated high school. I didn’t own another dog for seven years.

However, since that time I have owned close to 100 different dogs, the vast majority of them rescues. There is a family picture of my wife and I, our blended family of 5 children, and, at that time, 2 spouses. The special thing about this picture is the dogs in the picture outnumber the humans. All of the dogs are Boxers!

Over the years, we have rescued Boxers, Greyhounds, Great Pyrenes, Boston Terriers, Akbash, Anatolians, German Shorthaired Pointers, Border Collies, Australian Shepherds, Staffordshire Terriers, what I call “Dust Mop Dogs, but mostly mixed breed.

They have been adopted from shelter, off the track, picked up from the ditch, rescued from the median of I-45, the shoulder of I-35, and from the exit ramp to Perkins Rd. in Memphis, TN. Yes, her name became Perkins!

Currently, we have thirteen, but today I want to tell you about the one I didn’t want. His name was Ozzie, and he was a Boxer. I first saw Ozzie running loose through Ennis, Texas. He had jumped the fence at his owner’s house and creating a traffic jam from motorists trying not to run him over.

Over the next few day, I would discover that his owner was my secretary at First Presbyterian Church in Ennis. She was looking for a farm on which Ozzie could run free. I did not know at the time, but there was a conspiracy between my secretary and my wife to relocate Ozzie to my house. My response to the request for rehoming was a solid, “No.” That settled the matter until the day I came home and found Ozzie sunning himself on my deck.

Not only was he there to stay, but he decided I was going to be his human. I didn’t own him; he owned me. He didn’t stay in my fence either. He ran across 35+ acres. He enjoyed life. Since nobody seemed to know his birthday, he decided we would share mine. Yearly, we would go through a Whataburger and sit by a lake to share lunch. He became the guardian of our house, the most loyal creature I have ever known. He would go to the office with me. If you wanted to wrestle with him, he would take you down and stand over you until I told him to let you go.  And, best of all, the dog I did not want and tried to ignore, shared 17 birthdays with me before he passed, making him, at the time of his passing, the World’s Oldest Living Boxer. Though he has been gone for several years, I miss him still. 

Blessings,

Pastor Craig