When God pondered His first creation

When God pondered His first creation, He realized that such a creature must possess Love, Loyalty, Caring, Understanding and Devotion. A creature who would respect all the beautiful creatures, trees, and plants in His Kingdom. After several design sketches, He came up with a creature which had all these properties. His first creation walked on four legs, was black and followed Him everywhere. God was so impressed with this creature, He decided to give it a name. After pondering on this, God came up with a brilliant idea.

"I'll give him my Name spelled backwards", He said.

So this is how the dog got its name.

Now Dog loved God very much. Dog looked like a Labrador Retriever and went everywhere God went. When God left for work in the morning, Dog would follow Him to the gate and watch Him until He disappeared in the distance. Poor Dog was very lonely until the end of the day, when he would see God coming up the path. God would be tired after a busy day creating the stars, galaxies and everything we now have. What pleased Him so much was to see Dog waiting eagerly for Him at the gate. Dog would wag his tail, bark and jump for joy. He would follow God into the house and stay with Him until bedtime. At night, Dog would sleep at God's feet and also keep a careful ear for any strange sounds.

Everything was so good with God and Dog until one day God let Dog follow Him to work. Dog sniffed everything he could and ran circles around God until He reached His office. One day, Dog was lying on the front step of God's office when an Archangel went by. Dog had not seen an Archangel before so he thought it would be fun to chase him. The Archangel ran for his life and finally took flight to escape Dog. Although Dog thought that this was fun, he soon found out that this was not the proper thing to do. Several other angels also complained to God about Dog. God did not want to hurt Dog, so he decided to create a companion for Dog; especially since God was getting busier with all the creation work.

So God made man in His image and likeness to keep Dog company. Dog and man got along well, even though Dog never forgot the wonderful times he had being so near his God. We can say that "Dog is man's best friend", but we should remember that Dog is also God's best friend.

And so, this is how and why the dog was created. Though man has lost sight of the Creator's need for us to care for His Kingdom, the dog still has all the wonderful traits which God had required in His final design.

So the next time you see a beautiful dog remember that the dog was the first creature created and that the wonderful traits which God planned, Love, Loyalty, Caring, Understanding and Devotion are all wrapped up in that creature with the wagging tail. 

(Thomas J. Miranda, 1992) 

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Thomas J. Miranda, is a native of Hawaii (born in Ewa, Oahu on a sugar plantation, grown up in Honolulu, lived there until a year after the Pearl Harbor bombing, moved to California) has been active in the field of Polymer Chemistry and Coatings Technology for over forty years. He is the author of "Growing up in Hawaii" and has published over 50 papers, book chapters and the author of 13 United States Patents. It's possible to buy his books (for example) here and here.