SECOND HAND SMOKE

Two days before Christmas in '98 the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, chestnuts were roasting on an open fire, sugarplums were head-dancing, and our dogs were tearing apart a little, gray kitten.

'Tis the season.

Living in a more rural area sometimes we unintentionally play host to families of feral cats, this was one of those times--we were not very good hosts.

My son Dave was home for Christmas, and he and his mother were playing in the snow. The tranquility of the moment was disturbed when they saw (and heard) the kitten being worked over pretty well by two of our otherwise friendly dogs, who must have thought they had received an early Christmas present.

Extricating the dog-spit-covered feline was a trick in itself, but the dogs didn't stand a chance against Jean's maternal instincts. The dogs lost their present, and we gained a second cat.

Smokey the cat is now almost 17 years old, now always an indoor cat (his idea and ours), well-fed, shy, warm and loved. For Smokey to go from very perilous existence in the wild to a protected life in our home he had to go through being used as a pull toy by creatures fifteen times his weight.

For us to from what we are now to what we can become, do we also have to be metaphorically pulled apart by the big dogs of life?

Sadly for many of us, that's the case. Smokey would never have experienced the solace in Jean's arms if being held by a human hadn't been infinitely better than the pain of being chomped on by large, canine incisors.

To leave what we currently have, staying must be too painful. That is the root reason anyone would choose to change. As long as we perceive what we have now to be less painful than facing the "dogs" of a potentially brighter future, we ain't goin' nowhere.

If Smokey could only have reasoned that once he got through this dog thing, the rest of his life would be better, he might have gone looking for the dogs.

How are we different from Smokey the cat?

To change our job requires facing the dogs of interviews, working with strangers, new policies and procedures and a chance of failure.

To change our house requires facing the dogs of paperwork, meeting new neighbors, leaving old neighbors, arranging for furniture moving, new grocery and liquor stores and additional financial obligations.

To change a relationship requires facing the dogs of tears, meeting new people, self-doubt, additional financial obligations and a chance of failure.

Maybe it's time we consider all the good things we have in our lives and think about the dogs we had to face to get them. Don't leave an even greater future unexplored. Grab a box of treats, a can of citronella spray and wade through the pack, because sometimes to get what’s best we have to experience what’s worse.