TRAINING DAY! 3/10/13

MY #1 GRANDSON put a video on facebook with a ‘must see’. So I decided to click it on! There was this puppy at the top of the stairs looking for a way down, but was too cautious and afraid to attempt it. The mistress at the bottom of the stairs making this video sends, I assume, the puppies mother up the stairs to give a little encouragement. She gets to just below the puppy but still the puppy can’t do it. The mother runs back down and their mistress sends her back up again. This time she goes up on top and then comes back down one. The puppy get’s her front paws on the first step below her. Then changes her mind as the mother runs back down. So the mother is sent back up again and she goes to top and when she heads back down the puppy follows! Such a delightful scenario of beginning life on the fast track.


THIS TRAINING day reminded me of our Nanell’s Miss Frosty who came to our house to stay when she was just a pup. A little Beagle of sound mind and body! She was our baby and of course we doted on her as all good young parents of puppies do. She had a litter of her own and we were amazed at the training process that took place under our own noses.

JUST AFTER her six puppies were born she wanted all the world to come and see! She would greet visitors at the door and right away tried to encourage them into the spare bedroom to see her babies! She would hop into the bed and nudge each one closer to the visitors. We were told by those who know; that no one should be allowed near the puppies until they were at least two weeks old. If we did, the mother would refuse to care for them! Obviously, no one told Frosty this!

TRAINING DAY began for the six, as soon as they were allowed out of their birthing environment and finally into the kitchen where they were to learn how to eat puppy food. Frosty began to antagonize the puppies; one at a time for the whole day! At the same time she began to refuse to allow them to continue nursing whenever they wanted to. She would go out doors and leave them to their own devices until she was ready to tackle the classroom scene again.

DIGGING HOLES in our back yard became a regular event for Frosty. We didn’t understand until it was time for the puppies to go outside. She had dug up all of her bones and had them laying in the yard where the puppies could find them and of course each one had a bone of their own. Go figure!

WHAT SURPRISED us above all of the things Frosty did, was when we took her to be neutered and gave the last puppies away. She was okay with that! We brought her home from the Vet and she made a beeline throughout the whole house checking it over with her nose and her eyes. On and under the furniture and into the yard. Everything was okay with Her! She was just ecstatic to be home. If she could have talked, I doubt very much if she would have asked; “Where are kids?”

WHEN YOU STOP to think about it, training days are in everyone’s life. It starts when we are small and learn the word ‘no’, and it never stops until we take our last breath! Now some of you may want to differ with my point of view and that is okay. Your prerogative is to learn or not to learn. But when someone is training, someone is learning. Which brings me to God’s Word!

“TRAIN UP a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it!” Proverbs 22:6    The question to ask is; “what is the way a child should go and where should he find himself when he is old!? Do you have the answer?

“STUDY TO SHOW thyself approved unto the God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, but rightly dividing the Word of truth!”  2 Timothy 2:15    This passage is one of the first memory verses that I memorized. In Junior Church; we were ‘trained’ to memorize! I knew I couldn’t do it but was surprised when I did! Why is it important to study God’s Word? So that we will know the truth and can be set free by it! God’s Word is the foundation that trains us in godliness. Exercise is good for the body, but godliness is valuable for our souls. Those who are trained in godly discipline yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness, therefore, every day is training day! By Jane Ann Crenshaw 3/9/12