Our dog Charlie died.\u00a0 It is a sad time at the Spruill house, but I knew it was coming.\u00a0 He wouldn’t stay in the fence.\u00a0 He wouldn’t stay on the run.\u00a0 He escaped from most any collar.\u00a0 If he pushed his way out the door, he would take off running, ignoring our calls and whistles.\u00a0 He seemed to enjoy being defiant and running away.<\/p>\n
We would call for him, but he wouldn’t come.\u00a0 He would run all over the neighborhood.\u00a0 On more than one occasion, we chased him through the neighbors’ yards, trying to get him to come home.\u00a0 We would run after him and he would take off when he saw us coming.\u00a0 He was about the least obedient dog I have ever owned.\u00a0 And I knew that someday, it would get him killed.\u00a0 Two nights ago, he escaped out of the house and ran off.\u00a0 It was dark, so Tammy couldn’t see well enough to even attempt to find him.\u00a0 Nor could the driver see soon enough to avoid him when he dashed across the highway.<\/p>\n
Obedience would have saved his life.\u00a0 Staying within the boundaries would have saved his life.\u00a0 All the fences, chains, collars and schemes we worked to try to keep him safe certainly did prolong his life.\u00a0\u00a0 But in the end, he kept insisting on having it his way, and it caught up to him.\u00a0 It always does.<\/p>\n
God, if there are dogs in Heaven, let Charlie be there.\u00a0 But just so I don’t meet him there too soon, please, keep the fences high, help me stay obedient, and don’t give up on me, no matter how dark it gets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our dog Charlie died.\u00a0 It is a sad time at the Spruill house, but I knew it was coming.\u00a0 He wouldn’t stay in the fence.\u00a0 He wouldn’t stay on the run.\u00a0 He escaped from most any collar.\u00a0 If he pushed his way out the door, he would take off running, ignoring our calls and whistles.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[13,131],"class_list":["post-1552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consider","category-misc","tag-dogs","tag-obedience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1552"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1556,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions\/1556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}