We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and that your New Year is off to a great start. Louie is the perfect dog to lounge around with and enjoy downtime. We visited several people over the holidays, and he was a perfect gentleman at each home. While I believe he is an almost perfect dog I noticed something peculiar. He doesn’t understand the Golden Rule.

We have a new friend in the neighborhood who loves to play with Louie. Claire Lee Himmel is an English Retriever and as rambunctious as they come. Though she is a bit larger than Louie now, she was much smaller when they initially met. She needed no introductions and ran right up to Lou, got right in his face, kissed him, pulled on his ears, bit his face, and jumped all over him. He didn’t share her enthusiasm and backed away after giving her a quick snarl. He continued to demonstrate his disapproval as I stood talking to Claire’s mom for a few minutes. This interchange took place every time we ran into Claire and her mom.

But when we run into his buddy Mick, a Golden Doodle, Louie behaves very differently. He runs up to Mick, grabs his ears, gets in his face, and nips at his legs until Mick calls it quits by sitting as close to his mom as he can get. Louie clearly loves to play the part of the bad little brother, giving little thought to how aggravating he can be.

Noli looking quite innocent

Recently, we went to my brother’s home to visit Louie’s cousin, Noli Cannoli, a wisp of a dachshund, weighing every bit of five pounds but packed with 100 pounds of feistiness. She made it clear to Louie that he was to stay near me, he was not to walk around the home, nor get into any toys, go near his family or breathe, for that matter. Lou knew his place, sat quietly and behaved perfectly. All night he looked at me as though asking, is she for real? He slept all the way home, worn out from his cousin’s energy.

But when one of his pals comes into our home, he does the very same thing Noli did. He immediately establishes the ground rules by his actions: Don’t go in the kitchen, or go near my mom, don’t look at any food, or in the direction of the pantry, don’t drink from my water bowl or look out the window. I have to change the scenery and corral Louie and his pal into the family room to play and then suddenly, and it’s all fun and games for Lou.

While I think his behavior is comical, I am reminded that we sometimes behave just like this. We want to be treated with love and kindness yet we pick and choose to whom we want to demonstrate those virtues. I am continually challenged when I read these words: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”* The “Golden Rule” gives us a standard by which all of us who are naturally selfish people can assess our actions. Jesus’ Golden Rule is a positive command to proactively demonstrate love.

It requires work and intentionality to treat others with love, patience, and kindness. It is easy to love the loveable or those who are just like us. But that’s not what this directive requires. It is clear that we are to do to others what we would have them do to us.

Many times if there is something that rubs us the wrong way about a person, chances are we have the very same quality that needs to be worked out of us. Think of this the next time you want to complain about someone. What is it about them that irritates you? Could it be you display the very same quality? And if so, how can you treat that person as you would want to be treated? In the long run, it is not just about the other person, but it is working out a difficulty in ourselves. And the best place to start is by practicing the Golden Rule on a regular basis whether we feel like it or not.

Louie will eventually get this—maybe. It is a very tough lesson for all of us to learn. It may take some practice with Claire but now that she is bigger, he may grow to love her as one of his Alpha girls. He loves Alpha girls. [Link to Alpha Girls]. Noli Cannoli will learn to love Louie over time once she trusts that he will not get her toys.

My resolution is to be more intentional about treating others as I would want them to treat me, whether they reciprocate or not. I want 2016 to be the year of intentionality and loving others.

*Matthew 7:12

Mick tolerating Louie