Dangerous Assumptions Part 1

It’s been an interesting week here in the Covert household.  God sometimes has plans for us that we would never choose for ourselves.  I experienced this just yesterday as I was walking our dog. 

Zeva The Apologetic Wonder Chihuahua

If you’ve listened to our podcast, you will have undoubtedly heard me talk about our dog Zeva.  Or as I often refer to her “Zeva the apologetic wonder chihuahua”.  While large by chihuahua standards, she’s still quite a small dog.  This has often led to teasing from another well-known apologist that shall remain nameless in this post (you know who you are!). 

Zeva and I go for walks every day when I get home from work.  On weekends we go once in the mornings, and once in the evenings.  Yesterday we were on our first walk of the day when we were approached by a massive, and I mean MASSIVE, German Shephard.  

The Body Language Of Dogs

We get approached by stray dogs all the time while we are walking.  It’s not that uncommon unfortunately.  It seems there are more and more animals loose on the streets.  I am always shocked at just how many there are actually running around unsupervised in our area.  It’s not a safe place to have your pet off a leash.

I can usually predict how the encounter with one of these strays is going to go pretty quickly.  If a dog comes charging at us, I’ll react by picking my dog up to keep her out of harms way.  If the dog is coming at a normal pace, wagging its tail and is not displaying any threatening behavior, I will let the dogs interact. 

This dog was different. He approached us slowly, but not cautiously.  I could tell by his body language that he wasn’t interested in being aggressive.  He and Zeva exchanged pleasantries as only dogs can do!  And then he began to follow us on our walk.  He had more of a look of asking for help than anything else.

A Sucker Born Every Minute

We arrived back to our house, and he acted like he would walk right in the house with us.  I stopped him at the door as I took Zeva inside.  I gave Zeva her post walk treat, and then went back outside to see if the dog was still there. 

At first, I didn’t see him. He had actually gone around the walkway to the front of our house and laid down.  I got him a bowl of water and a few dog treats.   That’s when I noticed his ears.  The tips of them looked like they had been singed in a fire, or intentionally burned.  Luckily it was mostly the fur that had been burned, and not much skin.

Despite is being injured, lost and scared, he was incredibly docile and kind.  He never flinched when we went to pet him, even when we got close to his injuries.  My wife and daughter came out, and we all immediately fell for him.  

How To Put A Moose In Your Car

Our local shelter doesn’t open until 10 am on Saturdays.  We brought the dog inside to wait for the shelter to open so we could see if he had a microchip and his owners could be found.   This caused massive upheavel with the other animals in the house.  We currently have Zeva the dog and two cats.  Needless to say, none of the three were thrilled with the giant we brought in from the outside.   The cats hissed and ran away. Zeva growled and barked. And the strange dog didn’t flinch at all.  He just accepted the negative reactions without missing a beat.

10 am finally rolled around, and my daughter and I tried to get this moose of a dog into our car to take him to the shelter.  Try and picture a dog weighing well over 100lbs with his front end in the car, and his back end out of the car.  Not knowing him well enough (and fearing a severe back injury) I didn’t want to just hoist up his rear end.  So we eased up one rear paw and placed it into the car.  He got the idea and hopped his second leg in behind the first.  We were off!

No Luck At The Shelter

It turned out that the dog did indeed have a microchip, but it had not been registered with any of the locating services.  As it was a Saturday, we left our information with the shelter so they could continue to try and find his owner.  We had already decided that if the owner couldn’t be located, we would care for the dog rather than give him to the shelter.  

So we are now in a waiting game.  We’re looking for the owners, and also trying to figure out what happened to this poor dog (temporarily named “Rocket”, because he reminds us of the trash panda from Guardians of the Galaxy).   This has led us and our friends to speculate on what might have happened to him. 

Making Assumptions

Was he abandoned, or did he escape? Were his injuries caused before or after he was lost? If he was abused, why is he so friendly?  How old is he?  Why is he so good with other animals?  

At this point, we are just making assumptions about what might have happened to him.  We don’t know, and he isn’t telling us his story.  We have some clues, but we just can’t draw any definite conclusions about his prior life.  

What Assumptions Are You Making?

This got me to thinking about conversations I have with many unbelievers.  Some of the circumstances in this story echo what I see in my conversations with unbelievers.  We can sometimes make assumptions about the person we are talking to without getting the whole picture of who they are, and what their life was like prior to our encounter with them.  

As this post is rather long already, I’ll make my points in my next article.  Be looking for it this Wednesday.  I should have more news about Rocket’s situation by that time.  Please pray with me that God would give Rocket a loving home, either with his old family, or with the new one he has found here.