Pepsi... Super Dog

Last week Riley, this week Pepsi.

“Don’t let the Princes watch your dog,” I think that’s the lesson learned over the last two weeks. Last week I told you how “Riley” (Pastor Rubio’s Chihuahua/Jack Russell mix dog) upon entering our back yard, took a flying leap into our pool in spite of the fact that swimming is not one of Riley’s stronger attributes. This week “Pepsi” (Amy Story-Hall’s “I-don’t-know-what-kind-of-mix” breed) took a flying leap out a second floor window, (you read that right—Pepsi jumped out of our house… from the second floor) and presumably flying is not one of Pepsi’s stronger attributes or maybe it is…!

Here’s what happened:

Our neighbor and fellow Centralite, Amy asked Karla if we could watch their very cute and nice dog, Pepsi, during her son’s Zach’s wedding rehearsal and dinner. “No problem,” was the reply. But then we discovered there was a slight problem, Ben had a baseball game during part of the time that Pepsi was to be our house guest. “No problem,” again was the reply—just put Pepsi behind a gate in the mud room. Easy solution.

So the Princes went to Ben’s game. Zach and his family went to his wedding rehearsal. Pepsi went to the mud room. All was right with the world.

Well, not so fast. Alex beat us home and quickly called saying that Pepsi was not in the mud room, Pepsi was no where to be seen, and in fact Pepsi was not in the house. About that time, the Story kids showed up on our porch with Pepsi saying that he had run home. That’s strange. How did Pepsi get out of the mud room? Alex said the gate was still up. OK, I’ve heard of the other dogs jumping over or scaling over or in some way getting around those little kiddie gate things. But how did he get out of the house? Alex said the doors were still closed and locked. Does Pepsi know how to unlock and open doors and relock them? This would be quite an accomplishment for a dog that can barely reach the doorknob while standing on his hind legs. Did someone break into our home and let Pepsi out (Maggie, our dog, was still inside the house)? This had all the makings of a great mystery: “The Case of the Missing Dog” or how about this: “The Case of Missing Pepsi” (not to be confused with “the missing case of Pepsi”). Where was Sherlock Holmes when we needed him?

Alex began to snoop around and before long discovered that all the doors were locked and shut, and only one window was open in the entire house. My bedroom window (on the second floor, by the way) was open and the screen was ripped. Hmm… very interesting, Mr. Watson. While we have no security cameras to prove our theory on Pepsi’s great escape, we believe that Pepsi scaled the mud room gate, ran upstairs to our bed room and took a flying leap, through the screen, onto the bushes below and ran all the way home.

Pepsi obviously isn’t named 7-Up—he came down in the bushes. Thankfully, we didn’t have to call Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb wasn’t talking about what happened. (OK, that’s all the soda references I can make). Pepsi didn’t seem to be bothered by his second story leap. No broken bones. No nervous twitches. He has just a few scratches on his tummy.

The bottom line: Pepsi wanted to go home. Nothing would deter him from getting home. Not a gate in the mud room doorway and not a screen in my bedroom window. Not the fact that the bedroom window was on the second floor and that exiting from that window and onto the bushes below could really, really hurt. Nothing would stop Pepsi—he was a dog on a mission.

I wonder how intense we are about making sure we make it to our ultimate home, our heavenly home. Are we on a mission? Are we as resolute that we are going to get to our heavenly home as Pepsi was to get to his earthly one? Do we have the same (pun intended) “dogged determination” to make sure that our loved ones join us in our heavenly home, as Pepsi was to see his loved ones? The Bible says that we are just passing through here—that this is not our home, that we are aliens (1 Peter 2:11). Paul tells us not to get so comfortable in our surroundings that we lose sight of the goal. I’m afraid sometimes we forget those facts. We act like this old earth is the end all, be all. It’s not. Our four bedroom, split level is not all that matters—God has something more. Much more. Like Pepsi wanting to get home-- I can’t wait to get there, but unlike Pepsi I don’t recommend jumping out any windows to hurry the process!