What did you learn in obedience school?

"What Did You Learn in Obedience School?"  is one of my husband, Chuck's, favorite paintings.  One morning when we woke up, Chuck said, "I had the strangest dream last night?  I dreamed I was sitting on a bench in front of this dog obedience school.  A little furry dog. that looked sort of like a Yorkie but not quite, sat down beside me.  I looked at the little dog and said, 'What did you learn in obedience school?'.  He looked up and answered, 'My Master is all that I need, and she wants to see my better side'."

I thought it was the funniest dream I'd ever heard and asked him about 6 more times that day to tell it to me again.  It was such a vivid, cool dream.  I told him i thought it could be interpreted two ways.(I was, of course, making this up.)  "It's either a dream from God and he's trying to tell you that he's a woman....or...the first part is from God and the second part is from me!!"  This was followed by a lot of laughing from me.  Chuck was not nearly as amused as I was by my dream interpreting skills!

Whatever the dream meant, I liked the conversation between Chuck and the little dog.  I decided to paint it for him so he could always remember it.  I did take a few liberties by making Chuck a bluebird with a flower blooming in his heart and show them flying together across the sky on our red sofa!   A legion of little dogs sit obediently dotting the landscape below. An angel, transparent in the sunshine, smiles down on the whole scene.  When you think about what the little dog said, it's is pretty good advice for all of us.

"What Did You Learn in Obedience School"
Acrylic on canvas
22 x 28 inches
2003

Comments

[real live preacher]

Debbie,

This is Gordon Atkinson, aka Real Live Preacher. Welcome to the High Calling blog network. I'm looking forward to stopping by to read your work.

This was a lovely piece of writing. It's the first thing I've read from you, but I'm featuring it today at the main HighCallingBlogs.com site. Hope to send some readers your way.

thanks and great work!

gordon

[Debbie Warnock]

Hi, Gordon,
Thanks for dropping by. I really appreciate your featuring Goodthoughts and "The best memories are homemade" at HighCallingBlogs.com and hope we both make friends with some new readers.

Stop in whenever you can.

Debbie