When we went to pick up our new puppy, we had no idea of what we were in for. We wanted a little girl puppy and were delighted there was one still available. However, the owner made a conscious effort to let us know this little dog was going to be a handful. I suppose we should have taken the words of the dog’s owner a little more seriously, but how much mischief could a three-pound puppy the size of a size seven Nike really get into?

We fell in love with Saydee the moment we laid eyes on her. She was high energy, friendly, and full of life. Her mom was a Chihuahua and her father a Yorkie, an adorable mix. We brought her home, and as I recall there was a small bout of puppy carsickness, in my 10-year-old Kelsey’s lap, which made the drive home even more interesting. It would be a stretch to say it was their first bonding experience, but to this day we still find humor in it.

So what do most people do with a brand new puppy at night? Some people kennel their pet, but my girls felt strongly about not putting their new little baby in a “cage”. Others put their new puppy in an open-topped brown box lined with a warm cozy blanket. They then put their new little buddy somewhere in the house where the puppy-barking and whining won’t keep everyone in the house awake all night. That’s what the girls wanted to do, and it seemed simple enough.

That first night we put Saydee in the small downstairs guest bathroom at bedtime. I put a blanket in the corner of a “perfect-sized” brown box, set it in the back corner, and off to bed we went.  It took Saydee about three minutes to figure out a way to escape. She shimmied up the corner of the box, knocked it on its side, ran out of the bathroom to the bottom of the stairs, and started barking for our attention. Quickly I realized the cardboard box idea wouldn’t work. So I leaned a Boogie Board across the open doorway of the bathroom. This way she would be contained to the bathroom. This time it took about 10 minutes for her to figure out she could get out of the box and push the Boogie Board away from the door to get out of the bathroom.  And so it began.

Over the course of about three days, we tried over and over to find a way to contain this tiny puppy, but we failed each and every time. We put two chairs tight against the Boogie Board so she couldn’t move it, but she found a way to get her nose under the board, push it up, and crawl underneath it. We then added a rug, assuming she couldn’t get under, but she did. So we put something heavy on the rug. That kept her from going under, but she then found a way to climb over the boogie board. We kept building, and she kept escaping. By the time we finished there was a piece of plywood on top of the Boogie Board, and two bricks to keep her from moving the plywood. For every action I made, that smart little Houdini-puppy came up with a counter action to get out. And for every one of her actions that proved me unsuccessful, I had a reactionary action, and on and on it went until we had unknowingly built a makeshift deathtrap.

That forth evening the three of us went to bed thinking we had won the battle, but at about 11 pm there was a horrific crash downstairs. It was loud enough to wake us and cause us to go running downstairs to check on our puppy. I took one look at the crumbled mess in the bathroom and my mindset instantly went from rescue to recovery. I was certain there was no way our little puppy could have survived the collapse.   The girls quietly stood behind me as I started digging through the mess, expecting the worst.

Before I tell you how the story ends, I want to ask you a question. How often do we build something with the best intentions, but as it gets more and more complex, we are surprised to find we’ve built something completely different from what we had anticipated?  Sometimes we end up building something that completely undermines our original intent. Obviously, it’s not our intension to make a difficult situation worse, but as we try to “fix” it, piece by unplanned piece, we actually end up with a bigger problem.

As a parent, I am guilty of doing too much when sometimes doing less might actually be better. I’m learning that sometimes the best way to love my kids, and others in my life, is to not be so “helpful”.   Sometimes not running in to help fix things and giving them more room to figure things out on their own is actually giving them more, not less.  Sometimes less is more.

So back to our story.  As I was digging through the rubble, as if I were looking for an earthquake victim, Kelsey quietly says behind me, “Uhhhh, Mom?” As I turned to look behind me, there was our sassy little Saydee, curiously watching us as she sat on the back of the couch.

As I cleared away the mess I had made in my attempts to keep my puppy safe, I realized something very important. Somehow my focus had changed from keeping her safe to keeping her in. My goal was to protect her and keep her safe, but I had actually made her world more dangerous. I told the girls that evening, “If you will not let me kennel Saydee at night, we will have to give her back.” They agreed.   We purchased a kennel the next day.

Sometimes we need to take a step back and take another look at the big picture to get things back on track. The good news is we often can take a breath, reassess, and realign ourselves to our goal.  Every day is a new day to try again.

“To focus our minds on the human nature leads to death, but to focus our minds on the Spirit leads to life and peace.”  Romans 8:6

Wishing you joy and peace,

Lorrie