My belief is that there will come times where all of us will be at a spiritual crossroad. Where we decide what type of road we will travel for the rest of our life. We are just like dogs in this area. We have a few options. We can wander around like a stray and never have a home or anyone to care for us, we can be so disobedient no one wants to care for us, we can be obedient sometimes and really not meet our full potential, or we can submit to being trained in a way that helps us reach our full potential. 

Our company name is based off of this scripture.  

      This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’  -Jeremiah 6:16 NIV. I challenge you to dig deep into that book and what God offers to the Jews if they take the path that leads to right relationship with the Father.

     This is the story about how my passion to help others by training their dog to meet their full potential started. 

     You see, I grew up training hunting dogs on and off and never got the opportunity or had the desire to train one for competition until I was in college. At the time I met a few older guys that got me interested in the sport of competition dog hunts. I decided to get a dog and partake in the hunts.  At this point in my life I was struggling with the decision to continue to love my sin or to truly love and follow God. I was at my spiritual "crossroad". I reached a very miserable time in my life and cried out to God to help me out of the rut I was stuck in. Right around that time in my life I bought a male black labrador retriever and named him Timber. Over the next few months God would begin to use Timber and the time we spent training to open my eyes and do a supernatural work in my heart. 

     I am going to try and summarize some things God revealed to me about my relationship with Him through my relationship and training with my dog- Timber. First is Trust- Trust with Timber did not come immediate. Timber did not eat or hardly let me touch him for the first week I had him. I was astonished that a puppy did not want to eat or be pet.

Once I was saved, God open my eyes and showed me it was not that Timber did not want those things as a puppy- It was because at that time Timber did not know how to accept those things from me. It was because we had no real relationship, and he did not know me. Once Timber knew my intentions were to love him, train him, and treat him like a son we could then take our next step in the relationship. Number two is Desire- Once Timber learned to trust me, he had this unexplainable desire to please me and learn everything he could from me. He knew I was trying to teach him something that was going to make him better. And third is Obedience- Even though Timber was very obedient we worked on this daily, yet he still messed up, but he allowed me to correct him. He had to change and stop doing what he wanted so he could focus on what I knew was best for him. 

God taught me many other things through my relationship with Timber like:

- trusting Him when I cannot see the whole picture

- ignoring clear commands from Him

- and the ultimate toll on our lives due to disobedience.

    The truth is I could sit here and type all day and tell you about revelations that God gave me about my relationship with Him through my training with Timber. 

    Fast forward a little to where things took an unexpected turn. On November 4th of 2021 I took Timber to the vet due to his inability to keep food down. The vet thought that he swallowed something that was blocking his intestines, and I agreed to emergency surgery. The vet called me and let me in to witness the surgery with her and two nurses on her staff. They showed me the baseball size tumor that had 100% blocked his intestines, and they informed me that it was fatal. My best option for Timber was to put him down. In that moment, when I had to make one of the toughest decisions in my life, all I could think about at that time was what God had taught me through Timber. In my shock and emotion, I found myself beginning to share with the vet and the other staff in the operating room, in greater detail than what I have shared here, of how God had used Timber to change my life. A short time after putting him down that day a sense of frustration set in and for several weeks, I questioned God. But then things took another unexpected turn. The day before Christmas, the vet text me. She said “Mr. Butler, I hope you are having a very merry Christmas. I know you were devastated with the loss of Timber. However, I just wanted to make you aware that even in death Timber has saved a few more lives for Jesus. You see when you told your testimony in surgery that day, it was a story of Timber showing you God's unconditional love, well it sparked something at my office. The assistant in the room with me was raised in church but due to somethings happening in life, had really stepped away from her faith. Her marriage was in a really bad place at that time as well. Since then she has been going to church and her husband and she have been committing to pray for and with each other. Another assistant who was there that day, and saw the impact that Timber had, also had been having problems at home. She had been using alcohol as a way to cope with life's stresses. She has a young son who didn't need to see his mom like that. In the last few months, she has stopped drinking and is taking her child to church. I know that nothing will bring Timber back to you but, I will always believe that God was using Timber to bring those people to Him. As we approach Christmas and look back over the year, I hope you know how your story with Timber has had a ripple effect.”

      I am not saying this to glorify myself, my dog, or my story but to Glorify God. To glorify how faithful He is in the times where we ask “is he working at all. I want to encourage you that if you are stuck in a rut, if you struggle with understanding what a relationship with Christ looks like, if you feel like God is not working. Do exactly what Matthew 7:7 says to do. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.”  

      Due to the effect it had on me losing Timber I went into a season of shying away from my passion (training dogs). Even though I said I was throwing in the towel, God continued to place this desire to train dogs on my heart. I have watched the Lord bless my dreams and desires of owning a dog training business and believe he will establish it and use it for his Glory. 

                                                                                                    -Buddy