“There is no peace on earth,” I said.

I heard the Casting Crowns song “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” on the radio during the Christmas season, and it practically reached out through the speakers and grabbed hold of me. “In despair I bowed my head…there is no peace on Earth, I said.” The country feels divided and sometimes it seems that hate will actually trump love. But then the chorus comes: “Then rang the bells more loud and deep: God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men.” The children’s voices rise with the undercurrent of “Peace on Earth” and I know that no matter how dark things seem now, God is still in charge.

I was surprised to learn that the song, and the carol it was based on, were based on a poem by Longfellow, and that he wrote it during the Civil War. Even when I feel like the country is broken, it’s still not as fractured as it literally was during the Civil War. We got through that as a country, and we will get through this time as well. God is love, and love will overcome.

On this last day of the twelve days of Christmas, and in the new year, love rises.



Original text of Longfellow's poem:

​I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

A few weeks ago, I read a post on Facebook from someone with a service dog who was accosted by a small pet dog in a pet-friendly department store. Her reaction was to be less likely to support pet-friendly businesses, since she has had bad experiences with pets who were not well behaved in public. This post really got me thinking about the issues surrounding pets and service dogs in public.

One considerable challenge for people with service dogs is the practice of fake service dogs, which casts a bad light on genuine service dogs and makes businesses less likely to want to admit them. Anyone can go online and buy an official-looking harness and even paperwork proclaiming their dog to be a service dog. Additionally, since there are a wide variety of service dogs, including diabetic alert and seizure alert dogs who may be smaller than what most people perceive as a service dog, it’s very difficult to be determine what is, indeed, a valid service dog. Added to this is the fact that the American Disabilities Act, which regulates service dog interactions in public, doesn’t allow businesses to ask very many questions or demand paperwork.

My take on this issue is that if more businesses were pet friendly, there would actually be less need for people to pretend their dogs are service dogs. I believe businesses, including those involving food service, should be allowed to decide for themselves if they will allow pet dogs, and the decision should be predicated on the dog’s training and behavior rather than health codes. Most health code laws are trumped by the ADA, so allowing dogs in a restaurant or grocery store isn’t strictly a hygiene issue. At any rate, my nonshedding Yorkie is less of a health hazard in stores than a little kid with a cold wiping his nose with his hands and then smearing it everywhere. He is also better behaved than most kids. I have fond memories of living in Germany, where people brought their dogs to restaurants all the time but didn’t generally bring their children, evidently because the dogs were better behaved than the children were. A side issue is that people are less likely to leave their dogs in hot cars (or cold ones during the winter) if they are allowed to bring them inside businesses.

Unfortunately, not all service dogs are trained equally, either. Richie is a therapy dog, not a service dog, and I am very careful never to represent him as a service dog, even though I could easily take advantage of the widespread confusion over different types of working dogs. We often visit the hospital on Fort Carson in Colorado, and we have encountered a couple of service dogs that setting who have reacted badly to Richie’s presence even though he was not doing anything to aggravate them (and actually seemed oblivious to their presence). One of them was across the pharmacy waiting room and started growling and lunging toward him from that distance, something that no well-trained service dog should ever do.

Tests have been developed to certify dogs as being well behaved in public, such as the Canine Good Citizen, including an updated Urban Canine Good Citizen test. I feel that if dogs can behave themselves in public, they should be allowed in any business that wants to admit them, including restaurants and grocery stores, and that health codes should be revised to reflect current reality. Basing access to businesses on the dog’s behavior would drastically reduce the bad experiences of all concerned and help to eliminate the problem of fake service dogs.

One of Richie's strong points is that he is very patient with grooming, other than the fact that he really hates baths. His groomer used to work here in Colorado Springs, but now works close to Denver, so instead of driving all the way up there, I take him to her apartment, where she bathes him in her tub (just like I do at home) and grooms him on her kitchen table. He does try to climb out of the tub and is a drama king when it comes to nail trimming (he must think I will save him from those scary clippers), but otherwise seems to enjoy blow drying and tolerates the actual haircut well. He holds particularly still while she is grooming his face; I think he likes to be handsome.

Since she doesn't have a grooming table in her apartment, his groomer usually just covers the table with plastic, and he is pretty good about standing still for her. The last time he was groomed, he was slipping on the plastic a little bit and she got the idea to use her rubber cutting board to keep him more stable. It worked really well, even though he seemed a little surprised about the different surface.

Richie teaches me things every day, and that day the lesson was adaptability and rolling with the punches. Even if the solution to a challenging situation is a little unorthodox, that doesn't mean it won't work just fine.