In Mr. Sammy's Defense: Lessons learned from my dumpster-diving pup

It was one of those quiet autumn afternoons when everything felt just right. Our family was gathered in the living room enjoying the cool breeze drifting through the open French doors. Dana, our three daughters, and I sat together on the carpet, savoring a peaceful family moment. Then, without warning, something invaded the room.A smell. Not just any smell—a foul, penetrating odor that seemed capable of clearing an entire neighborhood. Dana and I looked at each other simultaneously. Without saying a word, our expressions confessed the same thing: "It wasn't me." One of our daughters was still potty training, so we immediately checked her. Innocent. The source had to be somewhere else. Then I looked toward the backyard. There stood our one-year-old German Shepherd/Lab mix, Mr. Sammy. One glance told the whole story. Apparently, Mr. Sammy had jumped the fence into the neighbor's yard, discovered a treasure inside their trash can, and proudly carried it home. Wrapped inside several plastic bags was exactly what every dog dreams of finding and every human dreads discovering—several days' worth of rotting catfish remains. Fish heads. Fish guts. Fish slime.His powerful jaws had shredded the bags, scattering the putrid mixture across our freshly mowed lawn. As if that weren't enough, Mr. Sammy decided this wasn't merely something to smell. It was something to celebrate. With absolute delight, he threw himself onto the pile and rolled from one side to the other, coating his beautiful black fur with every ounce of decaying fish he could possibly absorb. Dana and I stood frozen in disbelief. Then, without saying another word, Dana scooped all three of our daughters into her arms, turned toward the staircase, and while carrying them upstairs simply said,"Handle your dog."

Now, let me explain something. Dana loved Mr. Sammy. She adored that dog as much as the rest of us. Since the day we adopted him, he had never been "the dog." He was family. Which is precisely why her choice of words caught my attention. Not our dog.Your dog. There was no discussion. No negotiation. His latest adventure had become my responsibility. "Oh, Mr. Sammy," I thought, "if only you knew the cost of loving you."

I slipped on plastic gloves and headed outside. Unfortunately, things were even worse than I first imagined. It was the season when our sweet gum tree dropped its hard, spiky seed pods—the little "gumballs" every barefoot child learns to avoid. As Mr. Sammy rolled through the fish remains, those sharp seed pods embedded themselves throughout his coat. He was literally covered from nose to tail with a mixture of rotting fish and painful spikes. Watching him was almost heartbreaking. With every joyful roll, he experienced both pleasure and pain. He couldn't stop doing the very thing that was hurting him. I quietly asked, "Mr. Sammy...what have you done to yourself?"

I led him away from the mess, turned on the garden hose, grabbed an entire bottle of dog shampoo, and began what felt like the longest bath of his life. If you've ever bathed a dog, you know what comes next. The moment they get wet...they shake. Every time Mr. Sammy shook, whatever had been covering him found a new home—on me. The cleaner he became, the dirtier I became. Slowly, I washed away the filth, removed every painful spike, and cleaned places he could never have reached on his own. Eventually, Mr. Sammy was clean.

As I washed him, I reflected on several questions. How could Mr. Sammy ever have cleaned himself? How could he have removed the spikes buried deep within his fur? How could he have reached the places that needed the most attention? Most importantly... Why had he rolled in something so disgusting in the first place? That afternoon became one of God's unforgettable lessons about families.

1. We All Have a Fallen Nature

In Mr. Sammy's defense, he was simply acting according to his nature. Dogs follow their noses. They are instinctively drawn toward things that humans avoid. What smelled revolting to me smelled irresistible to him. Scripture teaches that humanity has a similar problem. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9 (NKJV). Paul echoes the same truth: "There is no righteous person, not even one..." (Romans 3:10, NASB). Like Mr. Sammy, we are naturally drawn toward things that promise satisfaction but ultimately leave us covered in brokenness. Some of our greatest messes are self-inflicted. Left unchecked, our sinful nature leads us into places where we were never created to live.

2. We Often Don't Recognize Our Own Baggage

Mr. Sammy proudly carried his treasure home. He had no idea everyone else found him unbearable. His baggage wasn't merely unpleasant—it affected everyone around him.The same is true in our families. Unforgiveness. Pride. Bitterness. Shame. Addiction.Control. We often carry emotional baggage without realizing how deeply it affects the people we love. The issue is not that people stop loving us. Rather, our unresolved brokenness creates distance between us and those who long to be close to us.

3. Our Sinful Nature Produces Suffering

Mr. Sammy wasn't only making everyone else miserable. He was hurting himself.The spikes buried deeper into his skin with every roll, yet he kept rolling. Sin behaves the same way. What begins as pleasure eventually becomes pain. What first feels freeing ultimately enslaves us. Our broken choices wound both us and the people we love. Left to ourselves, we need more than good intentions. We need divine intervention.

4. God Washes What We Cannot

Unlike our fallen nature, God's nature is altogether different. "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness..." (Exodus 34:6–7, NIV). God does not stand at a distance waiting for families to clean themselves. He comes near. He kneels beside us. He washes places we cannot reach.He removes what we cannot remove. He patiently cleans what years of sin have covered. But God does something even greater than washing. He changes our nature.Peter writes that through God's promises we become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4, NIV). As Christ transforms us, the very things we once desired begin to lose their appeal. What once smelled attractive now smells like death. His grace changes not only our condition, but our desires. That is why Paul could write, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" (2 Corinthians 5:17, NASB).

Mr. Sammy eventually returned to the family. But not before he had been thoroughly washed. The same is true of us. God loves families far too much to leave them rolling in yesterday's mess. 

Written by: Daniel A. Carmona, D. Min.