Oh Dear (Deer)!!!

 By Ralph Karow

Toward the end of June, we had a bit of a lull at the puppy kennel, so Br. Luke decided to take his retreat then instead of in August, when the rest of the monastics go on retreat. At that time, we’d most likely have a couple of litters, along with some dogs in heat, and we would need all hands on deck. It was a good plan, and Br. Luke had arranged for Iris, Fuller, and Amira to each reside with a monk for the week, but his new puppy, Greta, would need to stay at the kennel. The night before he left, however, Iris went into heat and would now have to be at the kennel. That got me off the hook, since I was supposed to take her, but now I felt sorry for Greta, and since I had already moved furniture out of my room to accommodate both Iris and Habibah, I didn’t have a good enough excuse to leave Greta in the kennel with a clear conscience. Habibah loves puppies, and I had been using her to socialize all of the litters since November 2021, so I didn’t foresee any problems with the two getting along. Curbing their play and feeding and walking them together would be a challenge, but I would feel too guilty if I didn’t give it a shot, so I brought in a crate for Greta to pick up the housebreaking routine where Br. Luke had left off. I was really looking forward to having Iris, an adult I could trust in my room, to keep Habibah in the good habits she’d grown into. A puppy spelled nothing but trouble. What I didn’t take into account was that puppies can’t spell. While it took a little adjustment on everyone’s part, it didn’t take long for us to become a family. The new problem was that Br. Luke’s retreat was only for a week.

            Nowhere in the Bible does it say: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Puppy, but I’m pretty sure it’s still a sin. So what should I make of it when God rewards me with Br. Luke’s puppy? Justice: considering that a week later we found out Habibah had an infection and had to stay off the grass and out of the woods until it was healed. At that point I had to either walk my two dogs separately or struggle with both on a leash at the same time. Ever try walking two very playful dogs on leash at the same time? It’s even more difficult than it sounds at first. They catch on pretty quickly, though, and surprisingly so did I.

             I’ve never been any good at leash walking. I always let them get ahead of me, and cross over and behind me, and eventually let them do what they want so long as they don’t pull too hard. Then we sit, stay, and start over. Probably a case of thinking too much, along with the notion that I can let them have a little leeway but be able to hold them back when I really need to. Absolutely not what the training center tells owners when they pick up their dogs. With two dogs, though, there is no possible way the three of us can walk without one of us (and that would be me) being in charge. That means from the get-go they don’t get the full lead of the leash, and nobody gets ahead of me. I know, but fail to apply, the theory with one dog, so how is this going to work with two? The answer, I found, is to not think but to listen to the dogs instead. Not their sounds, but what they’re communicating through the leash. If you can feel what they’re doing through the leash and respond through the leash with minor and gentle corrections, there’s an inner connectivity much faster than thought or reflex action that keeps everyone on the right path. And that’s kind of the way we need to be in our spiritual lives. Is it fair to say that Jesus through the Holy Spirit is continuously leading us down the path to his eternal kingdom, giving us enough leeway to do our will while offering minor and gentle corrections by his graces and admonitions? Sometimes, of course, we need harder tugs when we get hung up on our own obsessions (smells, sticks, etc.), but the more closely we pay attention to and respond to Christ’s gentle guidance, the smoother the journey and the happier we are.

             The most interesting (and embarrassing) event in which I needed Christ’s guidance came from my own lack of vigilance. Habibah’s first real encounter with a deer started with a standoff between her in the puppy kennel parking lot and deer up on the hill at the edge of the woods.  If Sergio Leone were filming the encounter, this is the point where he would be cutting between close-ups of their eyes. Finally the deer took a step toward the woods, and Habibah took off like a shot … down the road and in the opposite direction. If I hadn’t been laughing so hard, I would have felt sorry for what must have been a very traumatic moment for her. Given that background, you can understand why I didn’t take much heed when a guest advised me there was a deer in the parking lot by the big church. I even sarcastically replied, “Good—that’ll give her something to chase,” confident that if Habibah ran anywhere it would be back to me. This time, however, there was no stare-down. Habibah saw the deer, immediately ran toward it, and then pursued it as it ran into the woods. E-collar, schmee-collar!

            My baby was on a mission, and there was no calling her back. Fortunately, I had Greta on a leash, so I had only one dog to track down. Unfortunately, bushwhacking with a puppy on a leash just doesn’t work, so I made my way to the exercise pens to tuck her away before going back in a vain attempt to find a lost dog.  That pause gave me a little time to think and not just react. The first thing I thought to do was alert Josh, so he’d know what was going on in the event Habibah showed up while I was gone. The next thing I did was grab my extra E-collar. Greta’s pen is right next to Hannah’s, and somewhere along the way to see Josh it occurred to me that I’d probably be much more successful if I brought Hannah along with me than I would going it alone. Not that Hannah is trained to track, but she knows Habibah and would be much more alert to her presence via smell and sound than I could ever be. I didn’t see any point in trying to find Habibah at the point where she disappeared, so instead we started at the other end of the trailhead, with me calling Habibah’s name and Hannah running back and forth, just being Hannah. I don’t think we got more than 300 or 400 yards down the trail when Hannah stopped short, perked up her ears, and turned her head to look in the opposite direction. I strained to see where she was looking, and sure enough: out of the woods and ever so slowly came a wet, disheveled, and very much humbler Habibah—my prodigal puppy, who was welcomed back with the greatest joy and absolute forgiveness.  And why shouldn’t she be, when after all, it was my fault that she ran off in the first place. The time for me to have tapped the E-collar would have been before or as soon as she started running, not when she was in full stride. Which means the remote needed to be in my hand rather than my pocket.

            Still, we learn best through our mistakes, and this one instance did more to instill the lesson than 1,000 reminders could have. Beyond the obvious, though, lies a deeper and more monastic lesson. It wasn’t by my efforts or in isolation that I found Habibah. Nor was it by an act of God that she came back to me. At least not an overt act. It’s only in reflection that where I should have felt panic, angst, and hopelessness, I somehow had an inner peace and resolve that we’d soon be back together. Inner peace, not a completely calm mind to which bad thoughts didn’t enter. But that was just background noise that did nothing to obscure the inner drive and recognition of thoughts that mattered: tell Josh, take Hannah, start at the opposite end of the trail. I never stopped to think or even pray, but just followed the inner voice whispering above the noise. I suppose in a somewhat desperate situation like this, where one has no prior experience or a quick Google search to draw on, an inner voice becomes not only noticeable but very welcome. How often, though, and how easy is it to disregard and dismiss that same inner voice when our situation is not desperate and sounds against the noise of our own personal desires? God is always with us and is always prompting us toward him and for the benefit of those around us. Only Jesus would have heard and listened 100%. The saints a very high percentage. The rest of us … well, let’s not go there. I’d like to tell you that this experience will make me a better more compassionate person, but it probably won’t. I don’t see myself doing great things for humanity or sainthood on my horizon. Fortunately, though, I live in a microcosm of me, Habibah, and Greta first; the monks and nuns second; and finally the immediate community working at and visiting New Skete. All I’m aiming at for now is to do better within my cell. If history, scripture, and liturgy teach us anything, it’s that tiny beginnings tend to radiate outwardly, so long as they are carried out though and in Christ our Lord.

 

Postscript: I could hear Forrest Gump echoing “stupid is as stupid does” in my ear as I watched Greta bound after a deer a couple of days ago. That wasn’t because I didn’t have the remote handy. She’s not E-collar or any other kind of trained yet, and there I was, walking her off leash in the woods. Stupid! Usually I’d take her off leash with Habibah and/or other dogs where the “pack mentality” serves pretty well as a psychological restraint, but since Habibah’s in heat at the kennel, it was just me, Greta, and a deer. I didn’t stand a chance and should’ve thought of that beforehand … as stupid does. Fortunately, she was chasing it in the direction of the monastery, unlike Habibah, who was running away from it. I didn’t even bother trying to find her and walked straight to the kennel to get Habibah. We had hardly walked from the back of the kennel to the parking lot when Greta came charging down the hill to see what all the ruckus was. (The dogs get a little excited when they think they might get a walk.) In a way it was an exercise in humility. But in another way it made me realize that while I don’t always know what’s going to happen, I’ve gotten enough experience under my belt to know what I can do in response to what happens. I’d been reflecting on the seeming inconsistency between God’s all-knowingness and an individual’s complete freedom of will lately, and this episode got me thinking: maybe it’s not so much that God knows exactly what each person will do at any given moment, but rather what he’ll do in response to any possible choice we make. In such a scenario “things” may be predestined, while the precise means through which they come about can fall within the fluidity of human choice. I may not choose to do what God has laid out before me, but then it’s for someone else to come charging down the hill to pick up where I left off.