Treasure Your Gift of Free Will (Animal Rescues)

Hello my dear beautiful readers on this cool, but so far, fine Saturday. Welcome back. I am glad that you can be with me today.

The week is a busy and crazy time for me, but the weekends, those I devote to Jehovah, our loving Creator, for the  purpose of talking about him. Based on this Sunday's, (tomorrow's) Watchtower lesson: Treasure Your Gift of Free Will, is a cause for me to write this blog, and paragraph 17, well, the last sentence in the paragraph, summed it up for me:

 "Should we not also respect our brother's right 

to make personal decisions in matters of lesser importance?"

There is a reason I bring this up and choose to blog about it. Sometimes, I feel judged because I take in animals that I see need help, due to recent events, even animals along the road. Others say I should just leave them, but my conscience WILL NOT LET ME leave them. It would trouble my heart, and I will be filled with regret, and just as I don't want Jehovah to be filled with regret because I didn't use my choice of free will to please him in my conduct, I don't want my heart to be filled with regret that I didn't help an animal when I knew that I could.

Now I know people mean well by telling me to 'leave the animals' as they know I have a lot of animals already, seven (7) to be precise. All of these animal I have for various reasons. They all have a story to be told. Some of them came to me because former owners can not longer keep them and yes, I have room, (after all, what's one more mouth to feed, aye?) one was an Anniversary gift, and some are even rescued from the side of the road. Case in point, our latest family member, an older Beagle female dog.

Hey everybody, meet 'Oliana Mirren' aka 'Anna.'

(sounds like aw'nah)

Oliana Mirren, aka Anna

All of you have gotten to meet Anna the easy way. Let me tell you how we meet her, last Saturday... As I mentioned in my previous blog: Reflecting - 3 more changes in the family: Well, well, well... guess what we, Papa and I, did on our usual Saturday morning Ministry day? Yep, we rescued another dog! Change #2 As I type, she is resting. She's been doing a lot of that since we brought her home. (We haven't named her yet.) She was down at the end of our road. I was driving so papa could move more stuff on my phone over to the SD card, (I know nothing of how to do that sort of stuff) and I see something in the middle of the lane. As I get closer, I see that it's a dog. My first though was, 'That's the neighbors dog! Weird that it's loose. She (the neighbor) always walks her dog on a leash even though she lives in the country.' I expressed my concerns. 

"Oh no," Papa corrects my thinking, "that dog was there the other day. I saw it on my way to therapy, (for his knee. ;-) ) I couldn't stop." 

As I got close, I had to stop because the dog was barely moving out of the way. We both got outta Scooter2 to have a look see. She had tail tucked up tight. Very scared. Sniff, Sniff. Scared. Cold. Shaking. We tried to pick her up but she yipped in great pain from her left side. So I grabbed my jacket outta the car, covered her, and kinda scooped her up into my arms, trying to avoid touching her left side. She still yelped. Papa drove us back to the house and we put her in the house, in a private kennel with access to an outside area, free of Min Pin Harassment. Then back out the door. Do over. Ministry bound.

Raxin' on the couch after her bath.              

Oh guys, if you could have just seen how pitiful she looked! It is not in our nature, Papa or mine, to leave anything helpless. It just does not set right with us. Therefore, we exercised our 'gift of free will' to help this poor creature.

Anna shows signs of much abuse, and she behaves like she's never ever ever spent a day in the house in her whole life. Hence, she had no knowledge of using a dogie door and ended up pottying all over the place and sadly was laying in it! She didn't even lay down on the pillow I provided her. Poor poor thing. So last Sunday, before the meeting, I had to do a major Clean-Up, of both the kennel area and the dog herself. Into the shower she went with me. Oh it hurt her so much to be lifted into the tub. Oh did she stink. Poor poor thing. She did well though. And since papa and I had to take separate vehicles to the meeting for separate after-meeting tasks, I stayed with Anna while she stayed wrapped up in a towel and slept on the 'blog couch' with me. I left for the meeting at the very last minute.

Even though she was a bit of trouble, I am so glad that I exercised the 'gift of free will' to help this poor creature. She looked and acted so weary and worn out and pitiful.

Anna did eventually ventured out of the kennel, so I opened up the gate so she could join us (the fur-babies and I) on our walk. She disappeared shortly after I started walking, but later she reappeared back in her kennel area. This is progress cuz she has only recently started using the dogie door. After my walk, I did find her resting quietly on fresh puppy pads. I put them down for her while she was out because earlier the night before, when I was putting fresh pads down for her, she started yipping and tucked tail and stuffed herself into the corner and turned her head away like she was gunna get hit. Poor Poor thing. Papa and I promised her that we would never hit her. To me, that was a sign that someone had hit her often with something like a rolled up newspaper. A fact that was proven days later when, one evening, Anna was roaming the house, checking things out, and Papa was building a fire for the evening and he was crumpling up newspaper for starting a blaze, and Anna panicked, tucked tail, and was trying to find a place to hide. I hollered at Papa to stop the noise, and comforted Anna till she was calm again. Poop poor thing!

Moving at a snail's pace.

While Anna is lacking that pep-in-her-step, she does try to stay with me when we go outside for our walks. At first, I kept walking in place to wait on her. After one round with her slowly following, I got her back to the house and disappeared out the back door to finish my walk at a quicker pace.

Every day shows Anna getting better and better. Her pace is increasing, and she even wags her tail. I have yet to hear her bark. I have heard plenty of yipping though, it seems like everything scares her, a bump from a twig on the ground, the unexpected touch of my hand, my fur-babies approaching her to quickly. Poor poor thing!

All in all, I feel Anna is going to be OOOOOOK. Whether or not we choose to re-home her has not been determined yet. If I feel that she need to just be here at our home where she can remain calm and have no more worries, then 'we' become her 'furever' home. A dear brother of mine once said,

 "We are not under obligation to have a pet,

 but if we have a pet, we are under obligation to take care of it." 

He's right, it is an obligation. Even the scriptures make it clear that Jehovah expects us to take care of animals. I feel this article sums it up best, with emphasis to me on having a balanced view, (hence, I try not to rescue them all ;-) ) Pets—Keep a Balanced View of Them

In conclusion, I ask only that others should respect my decision to help animals where I can. We have, every one of us, been given the gift of free will. I choose to use that gift to:

1) serve Jehovah God to the best of my ability, 

2) take care of my family to the best of my ability, and 

3) help animals to the best of my ability.

As always, I welcome your thought on this matter. Tell me what you thing about rescues, being balanced, and the gift of free will.