The Patient Dog eats the Fattest Bone. Do they?

“The patient dog eats the fattest bone,”

I have heard people use this proverb a lot and I use it too. In fact, I have encouraged few persons who feel laid back in life with this saying “please, be patient and endure… remember, patient dogs eat the fattest bone”. But do we understand what this saying means? Or to be more specific, does the patient dog really eat the fattest bone? And, does the meaning still hold true in our world today?

I have the privilege to help raise livestock especially chickens, and I have concluded that the patient chicken does not always get the biggest share of the meal, but the fastest and smartest chicken often does. In fact, the moment these chickens notice my presence (as their caretaker), and sensed I brought their daily food, they struggled for who gets the share of the food first… more like survival for the fittest.

Indeed, it is a fight for survival! A fight for who gets the meal. I noticed an older greedy chicken attacked a smaller chicken just because it wanted to have all the food to itself. It pecked off the crown and hair of this smaller chicken until there was blood. And I want to believe this holds true for most livestock. No livestock will wait, if they saw their favourite food being served — I mean no healthy livestock will do this. They will fight, struggle, injure or at worst, kill their rivals just to have the food to themselves. Isn’t this also applicable to us humans?

Unfortunately, I have waited in a long queue in a bank and just when it was my turn to be attended to, someone had manipulated his way to the front row of the queue and was attended to, while those who had been on the queue were sadly never attended to because the bank had close for the day. I have seen ladies who waited and kept themselves until their wedding night, marry late. I have seen ladies who took care of themselves before marriage, had delay conceiving a child; whereas, those who committed abortions conceived beautiful babies. I have seen bright students delayed in securing admission into the university. I have seen honest and diligent workers, denied promotion but the dishonest get the promotion… and so on. So in these situations, what do we say? Was their patience rewarded? hmm

Well, let me take you back to the story of this greedy chicken who kept attacking the smaller chicken out of greediness. There was a time while feeding the chickens, I noticed that the greedy chicken had injured this smaller chicken so much that the smaller chicken became isolated and as a result could not feed well. I felt so sorry for this smaller chicken that I immediately took the greedy chicken out of the uppermost cage to the lower cage where the more matured chicken are. This way, the smaller chicken would regain its freedom and once again feed well.

The next day, when feeding the chickens, I saw how freely the once isolated chicken moved and how “joyfully” it ate alongside other chickens. I also noticed that this greedy chicken who was the attacker, now a victim of attack down the cage. The more matured chickens attacked this greedy chicken so much that it bled on its head. In a few days, it became bald. Lol. The injury was so severe that I had to remove the greedy chicken completely from the cage and isolate it. As I write this, the greedy chicken is still outside in the rain and sun, completely isolated from the other chickens.

I hope you have gotten the lesson in the story. God is our creator, and this implies that He owns us- Everyone on the planet. You may have felt left out in life even after doing all you can. You may feel like others are far ahead of you and are wasting away. But do you know that the owner still has everything in control? He can remove one and put another. So the encouragement today is never to lose hope and give up doing good, as long as the owner of life puts breath in your lungs. The patient dog still eats the fattest bone because both the “dog” and “bone” are subject to the owner.

“But the meek [in the end] shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace” — (Psalms 37:11)

“Blessed (happy, blithesome, joyous, spiritually prosperous -with-life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favour and salvation in God’s favour and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions) are the meek (the mild, patient, long suffering), for they shall inherit the earth!” — Matthew 5:5