The Dogs Who Keep Me

Before I knew how to speak, I had a guardian.

Sandy

Her name was Sandy. She was a collie mix — gentle, watchful, steady — part of the family I was born into, and she was my guardian. Some of my earliest stories come from my mother, who used to watch me from the kitchen window while I played in the backyard of the parsonage in Rogers. Back then, Rogers was still small, the road nearby busy enough to be dangerous but quiet enough to be familiar. She said the birds would come down into the yard — starlings, purple martins — circling me, sometimes landing just a few feet away. I didn’t try to grab them. I just sat there, mesmerized, while Sandy sat with me.

One day, someone left the side gate open. I started crawling toward the street. Sandy noticed before anyone else did. She barked and jumped at the back door until my mom realized something was wrong and came running. She got to me before I made it out of the yard.

That was Sandy. Always watching. Always staying.

I grew up with much older brothers — from eight to sixteen years older than me. By the time my memories begin to settle, they were already moving on, leaving for college, coming and going in ways that felt distant and adult. Sandy stayed. We had cats too, and I loved animals so much that my mother wrote little children’s books about me and the creatures I played with. But Sandy was the constant. For years.

Once, when we lived in Fort Smith, a bumblebee chased me across the yard. It felt enormous and deadly, like something out of a nightmare. Just as it came toward my face, Sandy lunged from the side, snapped it out of the air, threw it to the ground, and stomped it. Crisis over. Protector confirmed.

Later, when we lived in Searcy, Sandy got sick. She couldn’t get up anymore. My parents had to move her from place to place in the yard. The day they took her to the vet, they told me how she tucked her nose into my mother’s arm and simply stopped breathing. Peaceful, they said.

I remember that day clearly. I had already lost my grandmother McDonald not long before, and somewhere between those two losses I learned something permanent: love does not protect you from finality. Some beings leave, and the world does not rearrange itself to make room for your grief.

Princess

After Sandy, Princess came to keep me. She came from a shelter in West Memphis, and she showed me a regalness, a royalty that befitted her name, but she also died young — from heartworms, despite treatment. West Memphis had mosquitoes everywhere. I remember feeling helpless, ashamed even, as if I should have been able to save her.

For a while, I didn’t have my own dog. David’s dog, Bozo — a rambunctious mutt — became my playmate. But something was missing.

Zebby

Years later, in seminary, something strange and familiar happened. Don, Heather, Rebecca, and Megan came to visit. Rebecca went out for a walk and came back with dogs following her. All of them wandered off except one — a little puppy. I put up signs. I took pictures. Within twenty-four hours I had fallen in love.

I named him Zebby — short for Zebadiah, one of the gatekeepers who guarded the sanctuary entrances (1 Chronicles 26:2). I was in seminary, and somehow this became a name that represented a dog that guarded me, not in body, but in soul. My sanctuary. And he did his job well — he guarded my soul.

Zebby was extraordinary. I trained him using methods I had read about — learning how to lead rather than demand, and we became partners in life. He could walk off leash anywhere and stayed within my peripheral vision at all times. When Kelley and I got married, Zebby stayed close to both of us, filling the house the way Sandy once did for me, with a deeper connection than I had experienced with any other animal.

Later in life, something changed in him. Zebby became hypersensitive, fearful. He ran away. He dug under fences so obsessively that we installed an electric line, which only made him dig harder. I never fully understood what shifted in him, and I still wish I did. After a full life, and my first personal experience with the anxiety that he struggled with, he breathed his last in my arms, and I felt an emptiness that surpassed the few human losses I had had prior to this.

Venus

Venus came into our lives while Zebby was still alive. She was a lab, and the picture of a lab laying at my feet by the hearth of a fire was replaced by a puppy that stayed a puppy for three full years and chewed up everything we left out — my favorite slippers and shoes, gloves, even a can of paint one day. Eventually, she became just as I had pictured — the calm lab laying on my bed or by my feet for many years, bringing a calm in the midst of our growing family, the rough-housing, the growth pains, and all the craziness that comes when a family keeps five or six children plus their friends. She lived a full life, and she also died in my arms, in a way that was a relief from her labored breathing and weakness.

I wish I could have done more, been a better keeper for her in her last days. When she died, I felt my life lose a bit of its balance. The irony is that when Venus was a puppy chewing everything up, my life was calm. And when she finally became the calm black lab at my feet — or more often asleep on my bed — I was the one chasing life like a puppy. I still struggle to find that calm, and only recently started to see that it was here all along, present with me, within me. I have to slow down, rest, and find my calm in the midst of the storms. But I’ve learned something else lately: I don’t have to be perfectly calm to find it. I just have to stop and realize that the calm is always there like she was. How long I sit there is up to me.

Patches

When Venus gave birth to eleven puppies of her own, we worked to find homes for all of them. One puppy — Patches — kept coming back. I had forged a connection with him one night when I heard him yelping in the basement, where a frame had managed to land on his neck. I don’t know how I heard him, but I found him, and we bonded. We gave him to three homes. He ran away from the first two and found his way back to us, and then found a family with children to finally land at.

One of my few regrets in life is not keeping Patches. We were financially strained, already had Zebby and Venus, and I didn’t think I could afford to care properly for another dog. I never knew what happened to him, which is often the case when finding homes for animals, and I will never stop missing that connection. I probably should not foster dogs, because I find that connection with most dogs. But I will always regret that I didn’t keep him, even though I did so for good, practical, and responsible reasons. Sometimes, the internal reasons should outweigh the external ones.

Riley

Then there was Riley — a massive golden retriever given to one of my sons in Booneville. Riley was difficult, reactive, and once snapped at another son. Before Riley, we had briefly taken in a stray Dalmatian in Booneville who bit Malachi, and we let him go because we couldn’t trust him around our son. That choice was painful, but it also seemed practical and reasonable. Yet when our family talked about Riley, we decided the problem had as much to do with us as with him — so we kept him.

Soon after that, Riley got heartworms and had to stay inside full-time during his treatment. I remembered Princess not surviving, and that made me determined to do everything humanly possible to heal him — and we did.

I thought for a while that his in-house treatment changed him, but now I realize that it changed all of us. I became fully devoted to Riley’s health and recovery, and he became the king of the house. I watched training DVDs. One day, I took him on a walk using what I’d learned. Riley transformed instantly. That’s when I realized something both humbling and freeing: the problem hadn’t been Riley. I began to understand that the problem with dogs is rarely, if ever, the dog. It’s the people.

Riley eventually became a therapy dog affiliated with the FBI. He wore his vest and walked aisle by aisle through fifth-grade classes visiting headquarters in Little Rock, stopping at every child, making sure no one was missed. If a child arrived late, Riley would circle back as if it mattered to him that the newcomer was included. He had a way of making a room softer just by moving through it.

When Riley died, we buried him in our rocky front yard. The digging was so hard it was almost comical — sweat, rocks, roots, the stubborn Arkansas ground refusing to cooperate with grief. Ten years later there’s still a small depression where he rests, a dent in the earth I can see from the house. I don’t need a marker. The ground remembers. And Riley still keeps me from within my heart and soul.

Sampson

After Riley, Kelley got the first pick of our next canine family member. Sampson came into our lives looking like some kind of shepherd mix — not large, and easily as nimble as a sheepdog. But his temperament was a puzzle. He wanted to stay outside all night long, patrolling, on guard against threats that, as far as I could tell, amounted mostly to delivery drivers. And he had an anxiety that reminded me of Zebby’s later years.

To say that caused some stress would be an understatement.

Sampson ran constantly. He bolted at gas stations. Once in Greenbrier he jumped out and tore into a field chasing cows, and I had to drive my truck up near him. When I opened the door, he hopped right in like it was perfectly normal, like he had simply been out doing his rounds. He followed our cars without us noticing, trailing behind for long stretches. Sometimes he disappeared into the woods for two days. Once he was gone for three solid days. We put up notices and people called with sightings — across Highway 25, a mile and a half up the road, moving like a ghost that wanted to be seen but not caught.

We struggled with whether he would be happier on a farm, and came close to taking that step. But he always came back, and eventually we learned to come to him, too.

One day, Kelley saw a dog that looked like Sampson and said she saw Great Pyrenees in him. I didn’t believe it; Sampson wasn’t that big. But then someone at a farm said the same thing, and I started reading about Great Pyrenees traits: guarding, patrolling, independence, the instinct to protect territory rather than obey commands. Suddenly Sampson made sense.

He wasn’t escaping. He was guarding.

The woods behind our house weren’t just an adventure; they were a perimeter. Kelley learned that she could tell him, “Your work is over. You can come in now,” but it only worked if she went out and touched him — like signing off on a shift. For a long time he still wouldn’t come in for me, not reliably, until I started making his food. Homemade. Special. Mostly meat with some vegetables mixed in. Then he would come — not because he had been bribed, but because he recognized a ritual: a provision, a trust, a homecoming he could count on.

He is completely with us today, and we’ve all grown tremendously, learning how to see every creature with a deeply encoded passion and purpose.

Max

Around that same season, there was also Max.

Max was my daughter’s dog, who lived with us for a short season. Max drove me crazy at first. She was energetic, insistent, always present. In other words, she was annoying. I studied her breed, but she refused to be like they said she was. As has happened with me over and over again, the dog did not wait for my readiness.

We worked things out slowly. The breakthrough, as it often is, came through walking. Cesar Millan says walking is one of the best ways to bond with a dog — not because it’s dominance, but because movement gives a dog purpose and helps them focus. Max and I bonded over those walks. Side by side. Shared rhythm. No argument.

Later, when I launched a business, Max came to the office with us sometimes. Max was a natural. She was the hostess with the mostess. She greeted everyone. She moved easily through the space. She seemed to understand that her role was to welcome, to soften, to put people at ease. I loved having her there more than I expected to.

Then Max got cancer. There were surgeries. Treatments. Hard decisions. I recognized the path, but this time she didn’t survive very long. That was a hard journey, and since she wasn’t living with me, it was even harder to be separate. She had only been with us for a short season, but she taught me something lasting: even dogs we don’t choose — dogs who arrive through our children, our transitions, our inconveniences — can still become companions. Still become teachers. Still leave a mark.

Finnegan

While we were living in Batesville, and shortly after Max went home, one of my sons and I went to the shelter and picked a new dog to be Sam’s buddy. Finn was a cute mix of some kind of everything — Great Dane, blue heeler, terrier perhaps. He picked us, I think, and waiting for the adoption to come through took several days with background checks. I liked that, but it was hard to wait, and the anticipation made his homecoming something wonderful. My son and I shared the time to teach him, and had a blast.

Finn is nervous and very cautious, which made him especially eager to please and surprisingly easy to train. I misread him in many ways as he grew up, but he trained me. He taught me the difference between control and attunement, between what I wanted and what he needed.

Finn became one of the most special dogs I’ve ever known — a soulmate to me, in the careful sense of that word. I would put him in the ranks of Sandy and Zebby, and even Patches, though Patches is the one I can never fully be sure about. When Finn needed surgeries for leg problems, I felt the weight of those decisions in my bones, and knew that I would do whatever it took. And those hard choices with Finn helped me see Sampson differently too. Sampson had been there for me in ways I hadn’t recognized at the time, and Finn’s vulnerability made Sam become his protector as well.

Sampson and Finn are still with us — the runner and the soulmate, the guardian of the perimeter and the one who taught me to attune. They are the dogs of this present chapter, the ones keeping me now.

What is Kept

Somewhere along the way, I was listening to someone talk about people who claim they can communicate with dogs — psychically, not just by reading body language. I remain deeply skeptical of that, but the person said something that hit me: dogs choose us, not the other way around.

I found myself unexpectedly moved by the thought — not because I believe it as a doctrine, but because it names something I’ve felt for most of my life. I believe I have spiritual connections with my dogs that go beyond the ordinary. I’ve felt spiritual connection with people too — my wife, my children, a few close friends — and I believe we are connected, in some sense, to every living being. I even feel a connection with the greater creation, even the parts that don’t seem to be living the way we live. Trees communicate chemically, so who am I to say the Psalmist who wrote that the rocks and trees would clap their hands didn’t feel the same way. Landscape and scenery can hold my attention in ways that only they can. So I can understand why someone might extend that to gardens, to animals, to the living world.

Regardless of how one explains it, I know this: my dogs have connected with me in a way that is different from any other relationship in my life.

Somewhere in all of this, two words settled in me that I did not go looking for — “love and loyalty.” I have said them over couples as part of the wedding liturgy more times than I can count, and it has become a phrase I believe in. My dogs are the ones who taught me that, more than anyone or anything else.

Sandy taught me about presence and protection. Princess showed me grace in a regal sense, and also taught me to appreciate every moment, even when short-lived. Zebby taught me that words are overrated in communication, and that learning to communicate through body language and signs is often far less confusing than our words can be. He also took me much deeper into the realization of anxiety and its grip. Venus is still teaching me how to find calm in every storm. Though Patches was only part of my life for a short time, he may have brought me to the depth of understanding that “love and loyalty” carries. Riley helped me learn how I’m the one who can change and make things better. Sampson taught me how we all have something that we are uniquely — and beautifully — encoded for. Max taught me that sometimes we are radically different from anything others may expect of us, but we are still beautifully and wonderfully made. Finnegan is teaching me how caution and nervousness can be the greatest gift of all, when we learn to show up with love and grace, ready to learn from everyone and everything.

My dogs — and other people’s dogs — have all taught me more than I ever taught them. They have protected me, accompanied me, humbled me, and formed me. They have shown me that every dog is different — different traits, different fears, different instincts, different gifts. And the point is not to force them into my expectations, but to learn who they are and discover what we can do together.

When my dogs have left, the world has never rearranged itself to make room for the grief. But each time, I have.

They have kept me.

They still keep me.