Puppies

                General Conference is kind of like spring break. Sure, it’s equivalent in hours to a normal weekend, but it makes me feel as refreshed as if I’d just had the week off that my friends at other universities enjoy. Definitely a nice chance to catch your breath before finals. In addition to life-changing insights, the weekend also afforded me a great deal of enjoyment as I was able to spend time with my family. Both of those aspects warrant many pages to discuss fully, but here I’d rather talk about puppies. Namely, how puppies are like children and how we should be a little bit more like both of them.

                In between the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions my family and I went on a walk through our neighborhood. As we enjoyed the warm sunshine and cool breeze, a large black puppy began running in our direction. I was a little startled at first, as large strange dogs running in my direction tend to unnerve me slightly. It bounded past us, however, and we continued on our merry way. We soon noticed that the dog would only run a little bit ahead of us, then wait for us to almost catch up before bounding away again. It led us past the freshly plowed fields (that would be covered with four inches of snow by morning), and when we turned around it followed us back. At one point, we turned a corner and the poor puppy lost us, as she had been ahead of us again. Within a couple minutes, however, I glanced over my shoulder and saw our new friend running down the street to catch up with us. My brother laughed about our new friend who stuck with us despite encountering several other people along our journey. Eventually, we turned two corners in fairly quick succession, causing our new buddy to lose us. But for those short twenty minutes, we were all tight. The puppy had no social inhibitions preventing it from extending a hand – or paw – of friendship. It was not concerned with what we thought of her. She wanted only to be our friend and have a good time. She was not concerned with rejection. And her selfless friendship gave me warm fuzzies.

                Little kids are like that, too. They just come right up to you, grab your hand with their sticky fingers and ask if you’ll play. They attach themselves to you so quickly and completely that you can’t help but melt in their presence. But adults are not so much that way. Somewhere between preschool and college we lose that childlike disregard for what others think. We turn inside ourselves more and are less willing to readily and completely give of our friendship to everyone we meet. When did this happen? Was it during elementary school recess when our requests to play were denied one too many times? Was it during junior high when our crippling insecurities made us feel that no one would value our friendship? Was it during high school when we wanted to impress that guy or girl, and so disregarded everyone else we came in contact with? Was it in college when we were too busy doing homework to get to know our neighbors across the hall? Perhaps all of those things have played into our hesitancy to extend friendship, or perhaps it’s something else entirely. While I don’t think following strangers on a college campus is a good idea, I think we should be a little more like children and my new puppy friend. The selfless friendship they extend makes a difference, and the world could use a little more of that from us adults.

There are definitely a few things to be learned from children and puppies.