Who Owns The Backyard?
by Steve Goodier
Vicki Huffman, in PLUS LIVING (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1989),
tells about a man who loved to hunt and bought two pedigreed setters that he
trained to be fine bird dogs. He kept them in a large, fenced pen in his
backyard.
One morning he observed a little bulldog trotting down the alley behind his
home. It saw the two dogs and squeezed under the fence. The man thought he
should perhaps lock up the setters so they wouldn't hurt the little dog, but
changed his mind. Maybe they would "teach that bulldog a lesson," he reasoned.
As he predicted, fur began to fly, and all of it was bulldog fur. The feisty
intruder soon had enough and squeezed back under the fence to get away.
To the man's surprise, the visitor returned again the next morning. He crawled
under the fence and once again took on the tag-team of setters. And like the day
before, he soon quit and squeezed out of the pen.
The incident was repeated the following day, with the same results.
The man left early the next morning on a business trip and returned after
several weeks. He asked his wife what finally became of the bulldog.
"You won't believe it," she replied. "At the same time every day that little dog
came to the backyard and fought with our setters. He never missed a day! It has
come to the point now that when our setters simply hear him snorting down the
alley, they start whining and run down into the basement. Then the little
bulldog struts around our backyard as if he owns it."
How do you manage those problems you encounter daily? I don't mean that we must
fight with them, but do you persistently take them on until you persevere?
Dale Carnegie made this observation: "Most of the important things in the world
have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be
no hope at all." In the end, it's the persistent bulldog that will own the
backyard.
Steve Goodier
Publisher@LifeSupportSystem.com is a professional speaker, consultant and
author of numerous books. Visit his site for more information, or to sign up for
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http://LifeSupportSystem.com.