Spaniel Excellent

A man came into my office today, and told me a story of his cocker spaniel.

As a puppy, he trained it with treats to fetch his paper each morning. On Sunday the doggy didn’t because the weekend paper was too heavy. Actually he subscribed to the two Denver papers, the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post. Each morning the dog faithfully retrieved his papers.

Eventually the man canceled his subscription to one paper, and sent the spaniel out the first winter morning about six AM, in the fresh fallen snow, to get his one paper. He watched it run out into the snow, and disappear behind a drift to get to the driveway. But the dog didn’t come back. A little annoyed, he went back into the house to put on appropriate clothes for snow-trekking.

When the man came back, following the markings in the snow from the dog’s pounces, he had to follow his dog half a block away to the top of the hill on which his house sat. The faithful dog had searched in the snow until it found one driveway in which the second paper was visible, and had the news obediently between its teeth.

Think if we did that. Given a task, our determination and loyalty was so great that we would go through any trouble and keep going until we accomplished our assignment. Do you see the above and beyond excellence exemplified by the little spaniel?

Philemon 1:21, "Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say."

“Approve what is excellent.”

To God be all glory.