Strays: Sweet Muñeca

It was a Saturday like any other. Saturdays are precious at our house because of the peace that usually exists at our house on this one day per week. My wife and I are usually so busy during the week that Saturday is the day of decompression. This is also our day with Meeko to give him almost all of our attention. He loves it. We love it. We were on track to have one of our standard Saturdays and then my wife met… her…

I was on my way home from an early morning errand when I got the call. There was my wife, frantic. I immediately thought something was wrong with her, Meeko, one of our parents, or someone we cared about. She began giving me a play by play account of her chasing this stray dog through our neighborhood. Because of bad limp, she thought the dog had already been hit by a car and was trying to save it before it got hit again. This was a mutt breed but it had enough Chihuahua in it like our little Meeko to be small and frail against the big, bad world. My wife’s heart was captured.

The dog was finally cornered but she wouldn’t let my wife get close. She looked so old and so scared. I finally showed up and received a quick, in person debrief. As it turned out, this scared little girl let me walk right up to her. I was able to give her water and shade on this hot September afternoon.

We could tell that this dog was a beautiful old soul. She was reluctant but relieved to have the help. I finally was able to get her into my truck and back to our house. We were able to get her more water and she finally started eating a little.

My wife and I both had hearts that burned to make this beautiful little girl feel safe and loved. This is where the controversy began. Since we were now at home, my wife went upstairs to let Meeko out of our bedroom. He was so excited to have his mom and dad back at the house and he was so ready to start our day together. He came around the corner and ran into… her…

As much as my heart was turned toward this little lost girl, Meeko’s heart was turned away. He didn’t want anything to do with her. Worse yet, he didn’t want us to have anything to do with her either. He wasn’t having any of it. Meeko obviously couldn’t use words but he absolutely didn’t have to. We knew where he stood on this lost dog situation. He had major resentment for this other dog. He has spent his life being a “good boy.” He couldn’t understand how this stray off of the streets was deserving of the same love and care that he deserves for just being our son.

Undeterred by Meeko’s disapproval, we began to go through the obvious next steps. We looked for a chip. We made signs for the neighborhood. We went door to door looking for her owner. As the time marched on, we began to understand that we might just have a new family member. As we started down this road with our thoughts, we took even more steps toward making her life better. We went out and bought a bed for her. We bought a lot of soft food that she could eat because of her lack of teeth. And lastly, we loaded up the four of us into my truck and made a trip across Atlanta to our holistic family Vet. This is a woman that Meeko loves and is always so excited to see. The contrast on this day was that my little man that loves life and loves me and his mom with an unparalleled passion was no longer in any mood to show love or affection to anyone. As open as my heart was in this moment, Meeko’s little heart was bitter. I began to think about this situation and how crazy it was that a being capable of so much love was so willing to turn it off. My mind drifted toward the spiritual lesson to be learned by this situation.

Shortly after Jesus left earth, a man named Paul was given a charge to bring the message of the love of God to a people group called the Gentiles. This caused major backlash in the Jewish community because, historically, they were God’s chosen, not the Gentiles. The Jewish people felt as though they were the only ones that God should love. They would go farther with their open disdain for the Gentiles by calling them “dogs.” They were verbal about this hatred and really just outright nasty about it. At one point, God actually had to speak out on the matter through a vision given to a man named Peter. In this vision, God actually had to call Peter out. Peter, a man chosen and trained by Jesus himself, was in the group that was withholding the message of the love of God from this group who were equal to stray dogs in their mind. It took Peter three times seeing this vision before he would understand that God Himself had enough love to give to this other group without diminishing love for Peter. He was told not to call anything unclean that God had called clean. God’s love is for all people and nobody gets to say otherwise.

We got a call from someone who had seen our signs in the neighborhood. As it turns out, our stray’s name is Muñeca. We returned her home with tears. We had gotten to know and love this little girl. We all did. Meeko finally found some common ground and was ok with her being around also. None of us are better than anyone. Go out and meet people where they are. You’ll find out that you can make a difference in someone’s life and hope exists for all people when you make an effort to bring people in.