Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day ....” —Exodus 16:4 (niv)
No, Kemo!” I scolded my golden retriever as he came in from the backyard, his face and front paws covered with wet dirt. He’d just dropped a huge, dirty bone at my feet. Wagging his tail, he picked it up and dropped it again, as if I should be thrilled. I was not.
He’d recently started this new habit of burying, then digging up, and then again burying the rawhide bones I gave him. I was baffled because I thought bone-burying was something only fictional Fidos did.
Later, I told a friend about this and she just laughed. “Burying bones is their natural instinct. Before dogs were domesticated, they buried their bones, so they wouldn’t starve when the food supply got scarce. Bones are their treasures.”
“So he’s suddenly developed a hoarding habit?” I asked. “As if he’s forgetting that I faithfully feed him twice a day?” “Maybe that’s the point,” she said. “He wants to share his precious bounty, like a gift.” I just shook my head, but she continued in her sage gift-of-dog-wisdom voice. “Maybe you can’t see the gift because you don’t like the packaging.”
That stopped me short because the meaning of her words went way beyond the dog. Back home, I apologized to Kemo and thanked him for the gift. Obviously, he didn’t understand what I was saying, but I did...and God did.
