Home is Waiting

A few days ago, our sweet puppy, Mazzie, stealthily slipped out our back gate while my husband, Jere, was absorbed in his music and transporting brush from our yard.  Mazzie loves to chase bunnies!  It’s evident she was born for this!   It is her greatest passion and gives her boundless energy.  She’s usually happy to bi-pass a morning walk and needs a fair share of encouragement to try an afternoon walk.  But, oh if there’s an opportunity to chase a bunny, suddenly she moves as though she’s just had 3 energy drinks.  

Now, normally, on such an occasion as this, Jere and I would spend the next 2 1/2 hours chasing her around a 2 mile radius of our house. It’s become quite a game to her and she LOVES it!  She darts in and out of the neighbor’s bushes happily hiding from us and then magically appearing again if we’ve lost track of her.  We usually end up thoroughly exhausted and recognize all the while that she will only let us catch her when she is good and tired and ready to come home.  

This time was different, however.  We finally got smart and put a GPS tracker on her.  Sure, we chased her for about 45 mins.  But then we thought, hmmm, perhaps we should just let her have some fun and we’ll sit back and just keep an eye on her whereabouts through our phones.  You see, the tracker updates her location at our request and we can see exactly where she is (at least momentarily) by looking at the app on our phone.   

So we decided to let Mazzie have her fun this time.  And we sat, although a bit nervously, down to eat dinner.  We had a pretty strong feeling that she knew where home was and we wanted to see if she would return on her own when she was tired and ready for food and water.  Now, Mazzie is a Beagle.  Beagles are naturally runners and hunters and it’s not typically in their nature to just come when called as in many of those more-eager-to-please breeds.  Hence, most of our research simply suggests at least 5 foot high fencing to prevent these escapades.  Basically, our little experiment felt a tad bit risky. 

We tried to enjoy our dinner but, I confess, we were both a little uneasy about this test.  It was evening and we had a small window before darkness came and trying to find her small black frame, possibly in the woods and creek behind our home, would be almost impossible.

So we sat and ate, periodically checking the GPS to find reassurance that she was still fairly nearby.  About an hour and 1/2 after her romp began, Jere walked outside to see if she was in site and looking tired yet.  Relief flooded through me as I watch him walk in with a very thirsty pup,  exclaiming, “look who decided to come home!”  He noted that at his first call to her, she came happily running to greet him.  Whew!!  Our experiment yielded our greatest hope!  She did know HOME and she would eventually decide to return!

I can only imagine that Mazzie enjoyed following her bliss all the more, because she knew what we didn’t know she knew.  She knew where home was.  And….she stayed fairly close so she couldn’t get lost.

Do you ever wonder, if we stayed a little closer to home in our hearts, would that help us to savor and enjoy this life experience all the more?  After all, Home, Love Itself, is always there tracking us and happily waiting for our return.  Can we too give ourselves permission to stay close and return home when we are tired and need to replenish from this adventure we call life?