Sneaking Sofa Naps

I got out of bed one morning last week heading toward the coffee pot like I do every morning. Something caught my eye to the right. Passing the windows looking out into the screened porch, I saw Grizzly’s head, propped across the back of the sofa, looking longingly at me inside. I couldn’t believe it. This dog, Grizzly, the service-dog-trained- perfectly-mannered -obeys-orders dog who also happens to be 100 + lbs. was lying on the sofa! While I had been asleep, trusting that he was in his kennel - or at least lying on the rug in the screen porch all night- he was sneaking up onto my sofa during the night and sleeping there, as if he were a human, or Wally - the schnauzer whom we have never claimed had any training or manners and who basically, like a cat, does exactly what he pleases. (But he’s 22 pounds and very old so we let it go).

But Grizzly! Grizzly is better than this. He is stately and regal and trained to be a working dog. He is an excellent herder, an obedient support dog, a trustworthy companion and the subject of numerous blogs! He has a reputation! Grizzly draws in close and licks my hand when I cry. He barks in the night to alert us of deer or other critters in the yard. Grizzly walks miles with me, guarding and comforting me. This is who he is. Not a sofa-sleeper.

He has never in almost four years even appeared to want to get on a piece of furniture. It would be undignified for such a creature. He knows his work in the world…and lounging on the sofa is not it. And yet, I’ve trusted him so much that many days when I head to work or nights when I head to bed, I just leave his kennel door open, in case he wants to get up and stretch his legs. Never once did it occur to me that he was sleeping on my sofa behind my back.

I immediately saw the parallels.

Had I enabled him by leaving the kennel door open? Was the temptation too great and were my boundaries to lax? I saw the guilt and shame on his face when I caught him. He knew he did not belong there. He hung his head, contrite. He tried - very awkwardly - to get down. I also knew this wasn’t his first offense. Those days while I was gone several hours and I’d left his kennel door open, he’d been lounging in the lovely fall afternoons before I returned from work. That’s why my sofa cushions had seemed dingy though they’d been recently cleaned. I’d made the mistake of anthropomorphism, thinking of him like a person rather than a dog, or better the wolf, his ancestor. I’d left that kennel door open because I’d thought of what I’d like - to wander around and change scenery. But viewing scenery is not what wolves do. Grizzly is descended from wolves; they live in dens. A wolf den may be a hole dug in the ground, a cave, a under a tree stump or even a shallow pit, but a wolf-den is not a screened-in porch. His kennel is his den and he’s a German Shepherd dog. So yes, I’d set him up to fail in some ways.

I also found myself knowing immediately this was blog-worthy material and not wanting to write it at the same time. The fact that I’ve had this post in my mind for about a week and I’ve not been able to write it is a sure sign it needed to be written. Beyond the lax boundaries and wrong thinking about Grizzly’s true identity is another issue - my own shame. As good a story as I knew it was, I didn’t want my world of readers to know about Grizzly’s failure. His descending to a sofa-sleeper felt shameful to me. All these ways he’s represented the Good Shepherd to me (and you, hopefully) these last three years, all the words I’ve written about him, the talks I’ve given and even the guest appearances he has made a few times …and now I have to confess that Grizzly was sneaking sofa naps.

Maybe it’s a silly metaphor, but I found myself praying for boundaries. I’m asking God to keep me kenneled when I need it with whatever those parameters look like in a human life. The picture of Grizzly trying to stand on that soft sofa, his ears tucked back, his legs wobbly and feeble-looking, when normally he is strong and sturdy and majestic, was a picture of all of us when we are not living out our identity as the beloved of God. When we settle for less and believe we are something other than who God says we are and who he made us to be, we look like Grizzly in that picture. When we end up doing things we are not called to do in places we should not be, we are like Grizzly caught standing on the sofa.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

I’m praying for more vulnerability and courage. When I realized how embarrassed I was over what Grizzly had done, I had to ask myself why? It’s his shame, not mine, I tried to tell myself. Why did I not want to tell this story? Was I afraid Grizzly’s shame was mine? Does his choice of where to nap when I am not looking say anything about who I am as his owner? Is this the old sin of impression management tempting me? And yet, he and I are in relationship and it’s not one of two differentiated equals. He is my dog; I’m his owner. I’m responsible for treating him like the dog he is, not the ‘person’ I sometimes pretend he is. I’ve not been seeing him as he really is and I’ve been assuming way too much. And He is not above succumbing to temptation. He’s part of fallen creation. We all are. If I love him well, I’ll ask better of him - and myself. And we will close his kennel door when it’s time for his nap.