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Walking at a 45 Degree Angle Towards God

By Stew | posted 07/12/2007

"Anyone who is among the living has hope--even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!" (Ecclesiastes 9:4)
"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." (1 Corinthians 2:9)

My dog Chewie is dying. He may not know this truth, but he sure knows that he's having trouble walking. As German Shepherds get older they often develop a congenital condition in which the bottom vertebra calcifies and grows into the nerve cord coming out of the spine at the tail bone. This leads to pain, a loss of feeling in the lower body, and an increasing loss of control of various "output" functions.

People have tail bones, but they aren't real tail bones, they're just "end of the spine" bones. Dog's have real tail bones because they have real tails. The inescapable logic of canine congenital tail bone failure is that the happier the dog, the more it wags its tail, so, unfortunately, the earlier its demise. I don't like this conclusion since my dog has lived to the ripe old age of 14 and all those unhappy years of non-tail wagging must have been what brought him this far. If he'd been a happier dog, then presumably he would have died from over-wagging years ago. But that's not really quite true. In my defense, Chewie is only part German Shepherd (the other part Collie) so although happy and a tail wagger, he's lived this long I hope because of his genes and not because of any unwagging unhappiness.

But I digress. As I said, Chewie is dying. He's old for a dog, probably the equivalent of him being well into his 80's if he were human. He has cataracts, but it's the pinching of the spinal nerves that is the real problem. My dog brain surgeon from Tacoma, also an expert on canine neurosurgery, took one look at him and said that Chewie was too far gone to operate. He said that more than likely, in addition to the congenital tail-bone condition, he has one or more slipped discs. This would explain why one of Chewie's rear legs appears to have lost all feeling and the other still works fine. The loss of the use of the rear leg also explains why Chewie's rear end tends to walk at a 45 degree angle to the rest of his body: when only one leg is working, it has to compensate for the loss of the other and the stress and strain of doing the work of two legs cause his rear end to deviate from its intended path.

Now this is where I have to develop a lame analogy to make this lame dog walk lamely towards God. In a lot of ways I can see how being my dog's master is similar to God watching over His children. First off, there's a whole ton of stuff that I know and do that my dog cannot comprehend. For example, "Why does he get in a car and drive around? Why is he on top of that roof with a leaf blower? Why does he sit and stare at paper so often? Why does he wear clothes? My tall two-legged tail-less master who eats food high up on that big table works in mysterious ways..." And think of the things that I think about that Chewie cannot even comprehend, let alone roll his eyes at: bills, mortgages, real estate, money, music, movies, the internet, technology, space travel, astronomy, physics, biology, Iraq, global warming, English, French, arithmetic, algebra, religion, Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit. Knowing stuff like this makes me human, not knowing stuff like this makes Chewie a dog.

The Human-Dog gap is vast and similar to the God-Human gap, but the God-Human gap--I'm guessing by analogy-- goes way, way beyond in ways we are unable to comprehend. It's similar to your parents telling you when you were five years old "I'd tell you but you wouldn't understand." They were right.

But I digress again. Chewie is dying. He can't comprehend it in the way I do, since he doesn't really have any idea of what life without his life is like. His assumption, (I'm assuming), is that tomorrow he'll wake up and tomorrow will be like today. He's not worried too much about the arrangements for his funeral, what his global canine legacy will be , what inheritance will be left to his offspring (neutering can do that), or how his master will feel when he's gone. Chewie assumes he's sticking around forever.

Yet Chewie is dying, and because he has problems walking, he also has problems walking straight. This isn't unlike someone who has trouble walking the straight and narrow path required by God. Lots of times I intend to go north, but other things are pulling me west, so I end up going northwest, which if I do the math right, is walking at a 45 degree angle towards my goal. That's most of us. In fact that's all of us. We can't quite walk straight. Part of us is lame. So we need to make adjustments if we want to walk straight.

Now let me give you an example of what can happen when you walk at 45 degree angles towards your destination. Chewie walks very slowly now. He pretends to run by barking and hobbling towards cats and squirrels. But he moves slowly. The other day, I left the door open so that he could come in and out as he pleased. (Remember the loss of control in output functions.) I thought nothing of his absence until I heard a faint whining sound. I went out to look for him, and --Oh, No! -- Chewie was wedged in tight into an old unfilled post hole, a small hole about 12 inches wide and 18 inches deep. His 45-degree-walking rear legs had walked him into a hole that his thinking front end had walked by hundreds of times before without trouble. He looked as if he was stuck in quicksand with his upper torso visibly struggling.

My first thought was to help by pulling him out. But he nipped at me when I tried to help. Pulling him out was causing him obvious back pain. How much damage had he done to his rear legs? Would moving them hurt him even further? By now, my son had come to help and he too tried to pull him out. More nipping. Our only choice was to dig him out. My son ran off, returning quickly with shovels. But the ground was hard and filled with tree roots. Digging was made even more difficult because we had to make sure that our shovels didn't impale Chewie as we dug. Chewie was not in good spirits. I don't think he trusted us to dig him out of that hole. He was right. We never did dig him out.

A few days earlier, I had come up with an idea for helping him to get up from a resting position, an effort that was clearly agonizing to him. (In his younger years he'd play tug of war with me and I could get him to do a cartoon running-in-place on a wood floor while trying to wrest a Frisbee from my hands. Once he got the Frisbee from me, he'd chew the Frisbee into pieces. He wasn't called Chewie for nothing.) I grabbed a Frisbee and pushed in into his mouth. He didn't want to play. He was annoyed. I did it again. He wanted nothing to do with it. I kept at it and finally in irritation his jaws clutched around the Frisbee. I yanked with both hands and, amazingly, pulled him out of the hole.

He walked away from the hole, but eventually he collapsed.

"This is the end" I thought, "He won't get up because he can't get up."

By that evening when he had still not gotten up, I had decided to call the Vet to have him put down. They couldn't do it that evening, so we scheduled an appointment for the following afternoon. I felt sad and guilty for not having filled up the hole earlier (it had been there for over a year). I had hoped to allow Chewie to make it through the summer in relatively good health. But things weren't working out like I had planned.

But I digress, and so does God sometimes when he's trying to make a point. The next day, after rest and some medication, Chewie was up and about. I canceled the appointment. Chewie still walks at 45 degree angles, and he's still trying to get where he's going. And his days are numbered in the double digits.

Dick came by the other day, and Chewie hobbled towards him in his typical earnest lameness. I explained to Dick how it was hard trying to figure out when Chewie's quality of life had reached the point where I should have him put down. I had decided to use a modified Golden Rule to make the decision -- do unto your dog as you would have him do unto you. Not too bad an approach for a member of the family, though a dog. But it's a glass half-empty way of looking at things. Eventually the glass was going to be empty. My 45-degree thinking produced a decision that was delayed but of little consequence. Ultimately Chewie would be gone.

Dick's thinking is more straightforward than mine. Quite often he walks straight where he's going. "You know," he said looking down at Chewie with a smile, "I think there's probably a dog heaven." Since then, I've been feeding Chewie ice cream to give him a taste of the things to come.

To respond to this message, email Stew at stewka@comcast.net.

"Anyone who is among the living has hope--even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!" (Ecclesiastes 9:4)
"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." (1 Corinthians 2:9)

My dog Chewie is dying. He may not know this truth, but he sure knows that he's having trouble walking. As German Shepherds get older they often develop a congenital condition in which the bottom vertebra calcifies and grows into the nerve cord coming out of the spine at the tail bone. This leads to pain, a loss of feeling in the lower body, and an increasing loss of control of various "output" functions.

People have tail bones, but they aren't real tail bones, they're just "end of the spine" bones. Dog's have real tail bones because they have real tails. The inescapable logic of canine congenital tail bone failure is that the happier the dog, the more it wags its tail, so, unfortunately, the earlier its demise. I don't like this conclusion since my dog has lived to the ripe old age of 14 and all those unhappy years of non-tail wagging must have been what brought him this far. If he'd been a happier dog, then presumably he would have died from over-wagging years ago. But that's not really quite true. In my defense, Chewie is only part German Shepherd (the other part Collie) so although happy and a tail wagger, he's lived this long I hope because of his genes and not because of any unwagging unhappiness.

But I digress. As I said, Chewie is dying. He's old for a dog, probably the equivalent of him being well into his 80's if he were human. He has cataracts, but it's the pinching of the spinal nerves that is the real problem. My dog brain surgeon from Tacoma, also an expert on canine neurosurgery, took one look at him and said that Chewie was too far gone to operate. He said that more than likely, in addition to the congenital tail-bone condition, he has one or more slipped discs. This would explain why one of Chewie's rear legs appears to have lost all feeling and the other still works fine. The loss of the use of the rear leg also explains why Chewie's rear end tends to walk at a 45 degree angle to the rest of his body: when only one leg is working, it has to compensate for the loss of the other and the stress and strain of doing the work of two legs cause his rear end to deviate from its intended path.

Now this is where I have to develop a lame analogy to make this lame dog walk lamely towards God. In a lot of ways I can see how being my dog's master is similar to God watching over His children. First off, there's a whole ton of stuff that I know and do that my dog cannot comprehend. For example, "Why does he get in a car and drive around? Why is he on top of that roof with a leaf blower? Why does he sit and stare at paper so often? Why does he wear clothes? My tall two-legged tail-less master who eats food high up on that big table works in mysterious ways..." And think of the things that I think about that Chewie cannot even comprehend, let alone roll his eyes at: bills, mortgages, real estate, money, music, movies, the internet, technology, space travel, astronomy, physics, biology, Iraq, global warming, English, French, arithmetic, algebra, religion, Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit. Knowing stuff like this makes me human, not knowing stuff like this makes Chewie a dog.

The Human-Dog gap is vast and similar to the God-Human gap, but the God-Human gap--I'm guessing by analogy-- goes way, way beyond in ways we are unable to comprehend. It's similar to your parents telling you when you were five years old "I'd tell you but you wouldn't understand." They were right.

But I digress again. Chewie is dying. He can't comprehend it in the way I do, since he doesn't really have any idea of what life without his life is like. His assumption, (I'm assuming), is that tomorrow he'll wake up and tomorrow will be like today. He's not worried too much about the arrangements for his funeral, what his global canine legacy will be , what inheritance will be left to his offspring (neutering can do that), or how his master will feel when he's gone. Chewie assumes he's sticking around forever.

Yet Chewie is dying, and because he has problems walking, he also has problems walking straight. This isn't unlike someone who has trouble walking the straight and narrow path required by God. Lots of times I intend to go north, but other things are pulling me west, so I end up going northwest, which if I do the math right, is walking at a 45 degree angle towards my goal. That's most of us. In fact that's all of us. We can't quite walk straight. Part of us is lame. So we need to make adjustments if we want to walk straight.

Now let me give you an example of what can happen when you walk at 45 degree angles towards your destination. Chewie walks very slowly now. He pretends to run by barking and hobbling towards cats and squirrels. But he moves slowly. The other day, I left the door open so that he could come in and out as he pleased. (Remember the loss of control in output functions.) I thought nothing of his absence until I heard a faint whining sound. I went out to look for him, and --Oh, No! -- Chewie was wedged in tight into an old unfilled post hole, a small hole about 12 inches wide and 18 inches deep. His 45-degree-walking rear legs had walked him into a hole that his thinking front end had walked by hundreds of times before without trouble. He looked as if he was stuck in quicksand with his upper torso visibly struggling.

My first thought was to help by pulling him out. But he nipped at me when I tried to help. Pulling him out was causing him obvious back pain. How much damage had he done to his rear legs? Would moving them hurt him even further? By now, my son had come to help and he too tried to pull him out. More nipping. Our only choice was to dig him out. My son ran off, returning quickly with shovels. But the ground was hard and filled with tree roots. Digging was made even more difficult because we had to make sure that our shovels didn't impale Chewie as we dug. Chewie was not in good spirits. I don't think he trusted us to dig him out of that hole. He was right. We never did dig him out.

A few days earlier, I had come up with an idea for helping him to get up from a resting position, an effort that was clearly agonizing to him. (In his younger years he'd play tug of war with me and I could get him to do a cartoon running-in-place on a wood floor while trying to wrest a Frisbee from my hands. Once he got the Frisbee from me, he'd chew the Frisbee into pieces. He wasn't called Chewie for nothing.) I grabbed a Frisbee and pushed in into his mouth. He didn't want to play. He was annoyed. I did it again. He wanted nothing to do with it. I kept at it and finally in irritation his jaws clutched around the Frisbee. I yanked with both hands and, amazingly, pulled him out of the hole.

He walked away from the hole, but eventually he collapsed.

"This is the end" I thought, "He won't get up because he can't get up."

By that evening when he had still not gotten up, I had decided to call the Vet to have him put down. They couldn't do it that evening, so we scheduled an appointment for the following afternoon. I felt sad and guilty for not having filled up the hole earlier (it had been there for over a year). I had hoped to allow Chewie to make it through the summer in relatively good health. But things weren't working out like I had planned.

But I digress, and so does God sometimes when he's trying to make a point. The next day, after rest and some medication, Chewie was up and about. I canceled the appointment. Chewie still walks at 45 degree angles, and he's still trying to get where he's going. And his days are numbered in the double digits.

Dick came by the other day, and Chewie hobbled towards him in his typical earnest lameness. I explained to Dick how it was hard trying to figure out when Chewie's quality of life had reached the point where I should have him put down. I had decided to use a modified Golden Rule to make the decision -- do unto your dog as you would have him do unto you. Not too bad an approach for a member of the family, though a dog. But it's a glass half-empty way of looking at things. Eventually the glass was going to be empty. My 45-degree thinking produced a decision that was delayed but of little consequence. Ultimately Chewie would be gone.

Dick's thinking is more straightforward than mine. Quite often he walks straight where he's going. "You know," he said looking down at Chewie with a smile, "I think there's probably a dog heaven." Since then, I've been feeding Chewie ice cream to give him a taste of the things to come.

To respond to this message, email Stew at stewka@comcast.net.