Anyone who actually knows me, even just a little, knows that my wife and I are active in dog rescue work. We are a foster home for dogs from our local rescue. We work with these dogs to improve behavior so they will be more attractive to potential adopters, and we nurse many of them through the treatment for heartworms: which would otherwise be a death sentence. Our foster care efforts cost us some money too, as we provide the pens, dog houses, crates, bedding, dishes, treats, and fencing to see to their needs and keep them safe. We are supportive of several organizations and conversant with scores of other like-minded people via social media. We have helped some with medical expenses for their foster dogs, and some of them helped us with a major fencing project. It’s a good group of people with a passion for what we’re doing.
Occasionally, someone outside this group will point out that if we directed these resources and energies into doing good for people instead of dogs, we could improve many lives. Aren’t people more important than dogs? My response to them is simply, “What makes you think we don’t?”
I can understand their view because I talk about the dogs on social media and this web site all the time, I rarely talk about our activities to benefit people. Why?
Matthew 6:1-4 says:
1“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 2“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
This has been a guiding principle for us. We do not advertise the works or donations we provide for “God’s work”. We do not do these to gain attention: we do them because it’s what Jesus said to do.
Would we not be more effective if we focused our attention entirely on people and just let the dogs die? Maybe … but we can’t cure all the ills of the world in any case. We do what we can. Another of our guiding principles is the saying, “What you cannot do for all, do for one.” Rather than donating money to huge organizations that tend to waste most of it, we pick specific people to help, or work with smaller organizations to directly affect someone’s life – usually without the recipient knowing about us.
Besides, we both have soft spots in our hearts for dogs.
Then why all the talk about the dogs? Because helping the dogs is not “God’s work” (at least not directly), the only reward involved is our knowledge that we’ve helped to save these lives and get them into loving homes. All of our “trumpet sounding” about the dogs is aimed at raising awareness of the dogs and their need for a home, not to say, “look at us”. Some do compliment us for the work we do: and it’s nice to be appreciated, but that’s not why we do it.
There is a thing that floats around social media that observes that people who are kind and compassionate to animals tend also to be kind and compassionate to people. Those who abuse animals, tend to abuse people too if given the opportunity. I think there is a great deal of truth in that. The same thing that makes us want to reach out to help our fellow man, makes us reach out to all beleaguered creatures. To turn our backs on one, we’d have to harden our hearts and turn away from the other. We can’t do that, so we do both. We just don’t talk about all of it.
