No Worse for Where

This weekend my wife and I had to go to Fargo and so we left our puppy in the kennel for the first time. We dropped him off Thursday afternoon and picked him up Saturday morning. He seems no worse for where. I asked how he did and besides barking (as all dogs in kennels do) he did just fine. He hasn't had too much socialization with other dogs and so we hoped that having a chance for group play would grow him in this area. The lady at the kennel said that he played well with her dogs. She also said that he ate just fine...which was never one of our concerns with him (he gobbles up his food in no time flat and seems to always be ready to eat).

The kennel we took him to is in Bismarck and so after we picked him up we took him to Bismarck's dog park. There were about a half dozen other dogs there Saturday morning. As soon as Lewis entered the gate he began running around at full-speed and encouraging the others dogs to join him. We have concluded that he sees himself as an alpha male and leader of the pack. One of the dogs was a beagle who chased after Lewis the most. Even though he couldn't keep up with our goldendoodle, the beagle would take shortcuts to cut Lewis off. And as he was chasing Lewis, the beagle howled nonstop. It was like he was on the hunt for a fox. Lewis did well at the dog park expect for running over a Pomeranian and jumping up on a few people.

At our Community Group this past Wednesday, we began listening to a podcast from the Christian Counseling & Education Foundation on prayer requests. One of the analogies that the speaker used was that of a cameraman. Too often our prayer requests are for good things (health, finances, ministry, etc.) but we fail to turn the camera around and consider us in the midst of this issue. We don't want to just pray for situations but for "us" in the situation too. Please pray that as a Community Group we would grow in our sharing of prayer requests. Also continue to pray for our planning of the Community Carnival on October 31st and its success.

By God's Grace, Jeff