Thursday, January 8, 2009

Adapting to Imperfection

"IN LIFE WE ARE ALL FACED WITH ADVERSITY AND WITH WHAT APPEAR TO BE IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGES." H. Miller

My Dad sent me information about this Dog via email. My eyes and heart were opened and touched, sometimes I don't even have words to describe my experience of epiphany... I hope that you have the same experience after reading this:


His name is Faith!

This dog was born in 2002. He was born with three legs; two healthy hind legs and one abnormal front leg which needed to be amputated. He of course could not walk when he was born. Even his mother did not want him.

His first owner also did not think that he could survive and was thinking of putting him to sleep. Shortly after, his present owner Jude Stringfellow met him and wanted to take care of him. She was determined to teach and train this dog to walk by himself. She named him "Faith."

In the beginning, she put Faith on a surf board to let him feel the movements of the water. Later she used peanut butter on a spoon as a lure and to reward him for standing up and jumping around. Even the other dogs at home helped to encourage him to walk. Amazingly, after only 6 months, like a miracle, Faith learned to balance on his 2 hind legs and jumped to move forward. After further training in the snow, he can now walk like a human being. Recently Jude has been busy taking Faith to Veterans Hospitals all over the country where he inspires wounded patients.



Faith loves to walk around now. No matter where he goes, he attracts all the people around him. He is now becoming famous on the international scene. He has appeared in various newspapers and TV shows. There is even one book entitled "With a little faith" being published about him.



His present owner Jude Stringfellew has given up her teaching job and plans to take him around the world to teach that, "even without a perfect body, one can have a perfect soul."



Simply Amazing!


PS Congrats Dad on your engagement to Lesa! Much love to you both

2 comments:

Unknown said...

WOW! :)

Anonymous said...

Hey Rebecca, it's Nikki from high school days... I've heard so much about Faith, I've even done research on this dog. I'm huge on animals, so I've always got my TV on Animal Planet & have seen many shows about this dog... AMAZING!

By the way, I love your blog - You show turn it into a book, haha.