Kennel Blind

I’ve spent enough time around dogs and dog men to know one thing for sure: if you hang around a tailgate long enough, you’re gonna hear some stories. And somewhere between the second cup of coffee and the third “you should’ve been there,” somebody’s gonna bring up a condition I like to call kennel blindness.

Now don’t get nervous. It’s not contagious, and you don’t need to call Anthony Fauci to whip up a vaccine for it. It’s not the dogs going blind… it’s the owners.

Kennel blindness is when a man looks at his dog and can’t see a single fault. That dog can be running junk, missing trees, barking at shadows, and in his mind he’s got the world champion tied to the leash. The real trouble is, when you can’t see faults, you don’t fix faults… and sometimes you even multiply ‘em. You will breed that fault and pass it on.

I remember one night down in North Carolina, hunting in a competition. I had Tyge with me, and we drew out with a couple of good ol’ boys. One of ‘em brought his little boy along, which I didn’t mind one bit. Truth is, that’s how this thing ought to be passed down.

But I’ll be honest with you… when I saw that little fella step out of the truck, I thought, “Well… this might be a long night.”

See, Tyge had a quirk. He wasn’t mean, but for whatever reason, small kids made him act like preacher in a liquor store. He’d get cautious, hesitant, like he didn't belong there, and take his sweet time getting to hunting. I never did figure out why. But like me, most of my dogs came with a little “faulty wiring” installed at the factory.

So we cut ‘em loose.

Dogs struck, worked, and treed a few times. Good night overall. Then that gentleman’s with the little boy, his dog got treed by himself, no other dogs were backing him. We walked in, lights bouncing through the trees, and it was one of those wide-open trees. The kind you can shine in about ten seconds and know what you’re looking at.

We all got our lights up there, and that man said, “There he is, boys. That’s a coon.”

Now I squinted… leaned… moved my light around like I was trying to tune the old Grundy AM radio station… and I said, “I’m pretty sure that’s just a pile of leaves.”

The other hunter agreed. But that man? He doubled down like he was signing a contract. “No sir,” he said. “That’s a coon. I see him plain as day.” About that time, that little boy, said, “Daddy… that’s just leaves.” Without missing a beat, that man said, “Hush, boy. That’s a coon.”

Well… I’ll tell you this much. He didn’t get any points for that tree… and he didn’t get any points for parenting either. He wasn’t seeing what was there.

He was seeing what he wanted to see. That’s kennel blindness. So if we’re honest… that don’t just happen in the woods.

It happens in the mirror.

Sometimes in our Christian lives, and even in our churches, we get a little kennel blind. We start thinking we’ve got it all figured out. That we’re the gold standard. That everybody else needs to line up with us.

But the Bible doesn’t let us live there.

The Apostle Peter once told Jesus, “I’ll never deny You. Not me. I’m with you even to death.” And Jesus basically said, “Peter… you don’t know yourself as well as you think you do.” And sure enough before the rooster warmed up his vocal cords, Peter had denied Him three times.

That’s why Scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 13:5: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” (ESV)

Not examine your neighbor, or your coworkers, or that guy who cut you off in traffic. Examine yourself.

And then over in Matthew 7:3–5, Jesus said: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (ESV) We’ve got folks walking around with a telephone pole sticking out of their eye, offering tweezers to everybody else.

And don’t even get me started on the Pharisees. Those boys thought they had holiness down to a science. Checked every box. Followed every rule. Looked sharp doing it too. But Jesus started peeling back the layers, piece by piece, showing them what was really in their hearts… and instead of repenting, they said, “Kill Him.”

That’s kennel blindness at its worst. When truth shows up… and you still won’t see.

So let me bring this down where we live.

Sometimes it ain’t your boss.

Sometimes it ain’t the church.

Sometimes it ain’t the teacher, the neighbor, or the committee.

Sometimes… it’s you.

And I know that doesn't shout real good, but it’ll help you if you let it.

The Bible says in James 1:23–24 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

That’s kennel blindness with a Bible in your hand.

My dad used to say it plain, and I’ve found out he was right more times than I’d like to admit:

“If you don’t get along with a couple people, they might be the problem.

If you don’t get along with more than that… son, it’s probably you.”

That’ll settle a man down real quick.

 So here is the score keeper talking. Ask God to show you... you.

Not the polished version or the Sunday version but the real you.

And when He does… don’t argue. Don’t make excuses. Don’t say, “That’s a coon,” when it’s a pile of leaves.

Get honest. Get humble. And let Him go to work. Because the only thing worse than a dog with faults…is an owner who refuses to see ‘em.