Pets

For the past day and a half we've been dog-sitting for some friends that live here on the compound.  These friends, who actually come from Waco, Texas, have gone to Quito for three days and asked us to watch their approximately four month old dog, Rose, who is an absolutely beautiful golden retriever.  She's extremely well behaved and when she shakes her tail, she can't help but have her entire body along for the ride.  The kids love getting this privilege and can't honestly wait till it's time to give her a walk. 

Yet, when we were initially approached about dog-sitting, I felt compelled to tell our friends that we had recently lost not only one parakeet but two.  (Did I fail to relay the story to you as well?)  You see, we got two parakeets from some neighbor friends who raise various birds at their house.  They had had hatchlings previously and were willing to hand us two of the younger ones of their collection.  Only about three days went by before we looked out and saw an empty cage on our side porch.  Just that morning we'd shooed away the black cat that'd been interested in the birds, so we weren't sure if our new pets were lunch, or conversely, were the recipients of an open cage door and therefore good fortune.  As time soon showed, they were the later and we surprisingly got one of them back.  Apparently one of our birds heard a familiar tweet and flew to the cage of a friend's bird where he perched himself till he was caught and returned to us.  We couldn't get over our fortune to have gotten one of the two of them back.  Amazing.

Well, about three more days later, we once again came home to an empty cage.  Yep, door up again.  We seem to have a hard time remembering to close the door when we play with our pets. 

You'll never believe, but we got the bird back again!  Some of the boys found him and brought him back in their hands. Amazing again!  I immediately thought of it as a good redemption story.  We certainly did not deserve to keep these poor birds since we were careless with them and allowed them to fly off.  To have gotten one of them back not once but twice was a huge example of getting something that we did not deserve.  It was a story of grace.

Well, I'm sad to report that our good fortune and abundant grace did not continue.  One day about a week later we came home to an empty cage with a closed door.  A closed door? We have no idea what that means.  How did the bird get out? Did we play with him, put him back and come back later to close the door but not notice that he'd already flown away?  For a while we thought maybe a neighbor was playing a practical joke on us.  It was April 2 here and wondered if they were just late on their April Fool's prank.  Nope.  The bird's not been seen since and we're petless once again.  Isn't that just nutty?

So, back to the original story.  We're dog-sitting Rose and loving every minute of it.  None of us mind feeding her, walking her, playing with her, or just having her around.  She's fun.  I'd like to say that I think we're pet-ready.  But then I remember that we've lost two birds.  Maybe we're not pet-ready.  Who knows.  Guess I should just be thankful for the chance to play "pet owner" for a few days. I'm grateful too for the examples of grace even if it was short-lived.  Praise God His is not short lived or temporary.  Grateful for that.

Thanks for reading.
Blessings, kim