Dr. Ray Pritchard Christian Blog and Commentary

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Dudley's Coming

  • Dr. Ray Pritchard
    Dr. Ray Pritchard is the president of Keep Believing Ministries, an Internet-based ministry serving Christians in 225 countries. He is the author of 29 books, including Stealth Attack, Fire and Rain,… More
  • Published Dec 19, 2005

8:09 AM Dudley's coming in six days. Who's Dudley, you ask? Dudley is our five-week old basset hound puppy. I've written earlier about Little Gary, the red and white Basset hound that Nick and his housemates at Samford University bought in October. We enjoyed having Little Gary over Thanksgiving and were looking forward to having him in the cabin with us during the Christmas break. But one of the other guys ended up taking him home instead. After a bit of discussion, we decided get a basset hound puppy of our own. We quickly discovered that this is the prime time of year to purchase a puppy. After calling breeders in Memphis, Birmingham, Huntsville, and in Ripley and Louisville, Mississippi, we found several that said they had no puppies and a couple of others that were expecting puppies in January. We managed to find a someone in Birmingham with three puppies left out of a litter of nine. So last Friday Marlene and I set out for Birmingham (Bessemer, actually, south of the city) to view the two boys and the one girl that were left. We had tentatively decided to pick out the girl and call her Lucy after the little girl in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." While we were watching the movie last week, I turned to Marlene and said, "She reminds me of Little Gary." Marlene said she was thinking the same thing.

It took us quite a while to find the house in the dark, but we knew were in the right place because we could hear barking from the garage when we pulled up in the driveway. Turns out the woman works at an animal hospital and breeds basset hounds on the side. Her pups were all tri-color. We met the mother, an amiable two-year-old named Miss Piggy. At first we thought we would take the one remaining girl. Then Marlene picked up one of the boys (no bigger than her hand) and started cuddling him. But it was the third one who stole her heart. He has a brown and black mask around his eyes and he whimpered when she held him. The owner marked his toes with shoe polish (which caused him to whimper again) and said we could pick up our new puppy on Christmas Eve. On the way back to Tupelo, we had a long discussion about names. When Marlene suggested Dudley, I chuckled because it seems like a good basset hound name. So Dudley it is. This week we have to buy a flexible cage, some small water bowls, and the rest of the supplies we'll need. This Saturday we'll get up at 5:30 AM so we can pick him at 8 AM and be back in Tupelo by the middle of the morning.

 

Christmas week is always exciting, but it's extra special this year because Dudley joins our family in six days.

 

8:03 AM A big Monday shout out to Sam and Lovice Nicosia, Stephanie West, Rev. James H. Van Roekel, Ken and Betty Dawson in Texas, Mike and Kimberly DiEmo, my buddy Nick Gobel, Al Crespo, Caleb and Debbie Lucien in Pignon Haiti, Dave and Rachel Powell in Peru, Rose Redington at Dallas Seminary, Monica White at the Total Living Network, Mike Steger, Roy and Toni Horras, Irma Csakai and Bill and Mary Jo Price in Columbus, OH.

8:02 AM I'm being interviewed from 10-11 AM CDT today on American Family Radio.

8:01 AM More house church leaders  arrested in China.

You can reach the author at  ray@keepbelieving.com. Click here to sign up for the free weekly email sermon.


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