My toy poodle Lottie has really bad teeth.
It's the bane of our existence, really. She's tiny, and there's just not enough room in her mouth for all of them. She's only five years old, but in the past three years (and four dental cleanings) she's lost all but 9 of her teeth. She still has all her canines and can still eat fine, but I don't want her to end up a 7-year-old toothless wonder-dog who can't enjoy bones and rawhides.
However, try to brush that handful of pearly whites and my sweet, loving little dog turns into a 5-pound Cujo bent on destruction of everything in her path.
Tonight, realizing it's been a few weeks since she's had her teeth brushed by the groomer, I decided it was time to try again with the tiny angled toothbrush and beef-flavored doggie toothpaste I bought a few years ago. I did everything the package said: I let her smell the toothpaste, lick it off my finger, praised her over and over, and finally...managed to wedge her in between my knees and desperately tried to get even a few brushes in between her vicious attempts to take off my hands with the few crunchers she has left.
After ten minutes of fighting, I gave up and reached for the dental spray I keep on our bathroom counter - a compromise, if you will. (Not really, she hates that too.) But first, I decided that I was going to prove to our vet that Lottie will not let me do anything with her teeth, so I turned on the video recorder on my iPhone and set it up against the bathtub to film her.
"This video is for Dr. Tran!" I announced to a quizzical Lottie, who did the poodle head-tilt as I narrated. "This is to show her that Lottie will NOT let me brush her teeth or spray them! This is proof!"
Lottie sat across from me with a look as if to say, "Mom, quit being such a weirdo."
I leaned in, grabbed Lottie under her chin, held the spray in my other hand...and would you believe it, she sat peacefully right there as I opened her mouth and sprayed her teeth, no muss, no fuss.
I was shocked.
I praised her out of disbelief as well as excitement, and after I was finished she trotted off back to her rawhide in the other room, adjusting to the new flavor in her mouth.
I picked up the iPhone and stared at it dumbly...then stopped the recording.
What just happened?!
She had never let me spray her teeth before - not once in her almost 6 years of life.
And yet, when the camera was on, she sat still and was complacent.
Now, I'm not silly enough to think that she understood the camera was there. That wasn't it. She probably was just relieved that I wasn't trying to use the toothbrush, or she liked the taste of the spray (suddenly), or any other number of reasons. Whatever it was, though, it got me thinking.
How many of us are like that? Angry, rebellious, fighting with God, fighting with our families and friends - until the camera is switched on? Until we're out in the open, out around strangers, out at church or in public?
How often do we stop our bad behavior when all eyes are on us?
I think that's one of the reasons I sometimes get frustrated with church. Not any one church in particular, just in general - we have a tendency to lie when we're at church. In response to "How are you?", we say "I'm well!" or "I'm fine," not being genuine. We have a tendency to put on a happy face, to sweep our struggles under the rug, or to deny that we're suffering.
We have a tendency to become complacent when the camera is switched on.
I can't be complacent right now. I can't be silent and obliging in this season of my life. I can't just pretend everything is fine and that I'm not angry, not hurting, not heartbroken.
I guess I just have to find someone, something, somewhere...that won't turn on the camera.
No comments:
Post a Comment