“And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love” (2 John 6).

I am having a terribly difficult time learning to heel! I should explain.

My frustration with our little dog Laylah has caused me to examine myself. When we go for walks, as we often do these days, Laylah has a tendency to get out in front of me, even when I keep her on a short leash. This would not be a problem, except for the fact that Ms. Laylah has inherited a terrible weakness from her male adopted pet parent: She has attention deficit disorder.  This malady is also known as, “Squirrel! Syndrome.” If my furry little girl sees a squirrel or a bird, or another dog, or blowing leaf or piece of paper, she is off to the races. And she is very fast.

If she cuts to the right side, she threatens to break her own neck, or at least give herself a sore neck. If she cuts to the left side, across my direction of locomotion, she threatens to break my neck, by causing me to have a bad fall. So, teaching her to heel is kind of important, for both her sake and mine.

So, this morning I asked myself why it is so difficult for her to learn to heel. She’s a smart little thing, like my wife, her adopted mamma. The problem is that Laylah is only smart when she decides to be. “Why can’t you learn this?” I said to Laylah, rather reproachfully this morning. She looked at me with fearful humility, and, for two or three seconds, she stayed back. However, before I could say, “Thanks for letting me lead,” she wasn’t—letting me lead, that is.

So, I tried to think like a canine. I don’t know if I succeeded, or that God spoke though me to Laylah. But I do know that God spoke through Laylah to me.

For one thing, Laylah just gets distracted. I’m not so sure that ADD is the proper name for the disorder.  Perhaps it should be called Attention Distraction Disorder. ADD people and dogs don’t have a deficit of attention. We just find ourselves distracted from where we need to direct our attention. And let’s face it. Focusing on obedience isn’t the easiest thing to do, no matter what species we are.

Maybe Laylah’s priorities get messed up. The immediate gratification of chasing a squirrel or a blowing leaf seems so much more important than whatever this hulking giant on the end of her leash wants her to do. Of course, dogs do not have a corner on the immediate gratification market.

But the basic problem is that Laylah wants to be the alpha dog. She may only weigh 7 ½ pounds, but that doesn’t keep her from wanting to be the big dog.

Now, I don’t think that I need to spend a lot of time unpacking these lessons for you and me. We speak of following God or Jesus. That is certainly an appropriate way of speaking. However, sometimes we get distracted, and forget who is on the other end of the leash.

And then there’s the problem of immediate gratification. In fact, I think it is so common that we should turn this expression into a blend word—“immediafication”!

However, the most serious problem is our desire to be the ALPHA DOG. The all caps are not an accident. This is a problem because, no matter what fine people we may be, we all make lousy gods. When we don’t follow God/Jesus, when we try to run ahead, we get ourselves into a mess in a hurry. Unfortunately (or is it so unfortunate, really?), God moves very slowly, and we are very quick. In fact, we are entirely too quick.

Learning to heel is not easy, but it is tremendously important. Perhaps I owe Laylah an apology. I’m sure that I need to ask God to forgive me. And no doubt I need to set a better example for my dog and for my two-legged friends as well.