Originally created in 1964 by an advertising agency as a prop to help sell breakfast cereal for General Mills, the cartoon character "Underdog" would eventually rise (no pun intended) to iconic pop culture status as a caped-canine television superhero. Over the show’s nine-year run and decades- longer presence in syndication, we could always count on the barrel-chested dog to come to the rescue of his love interest, a television reporter known as Sweet Polly Purebred.

Like every program in its genre, it was a silly cartoon with an inane premise – a flying dog?

Little did I know back in the 1970s that almost 40 years later, my family and I would encounter not one – but two – dogs that seemed determined to emulate the animated floppy-eared flyer.

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Soon after the death of our Great Dane, Shep, our family welcomed another rescue dog, this time a black Dane/Lab mix. She presented mellow and sweet, and we all fell quickly in love with her. We named her R.H. Macy, a nod to our family’s New York roots and our affection for the perennial Christmas movie classic, "Miracle on 34th Street."

As it turned out, an illness had masked some of Macy’s anxiety. After a round of medication and a few days of recovery, the once mellow dog was a bundle of nerves. Based on her skittish reaction to men, we assumed she had been abused. She followed my wife everywhere. But after a few weeks of providing her with constant company, Julie and our son left her alone and headed out to the supermarket. I was at work.

I sometimes wonder if God didn’t give us animals to both help and humble us...

Just before lunch, my cellphone rang. It was our next door neighbor, Debbie.

“Paul,” she said, her voice a bit unsteady. “We have a bit of a situation.”

My heart sank. A few years earlier my wife had suffered a seizure, and ever since, I had been living in quiet fear that she’d have another.

“Is Julie okay?” I blurted out. “Is Riley?”

“I don’t know where they are,” she said. “But your dog jumped out of your second story window and pulled down the gutter in the process.”

I immediately pictured the bloody carnage of a dead dog splattered on our driveway.

“But don’t worry,” she added. “Macy is fine. She’s just sitting on your front porch waiting for you.”

The 100-plus-pound dog had somehow managed to slip under the blinds, squeeze thru a narrow open window, break through the screen and jump out onto a small roof over our garage. She had then made the death-defying leap to the driveway, her back leg hooking onto the metal gutter on the way down. Her only injury was a small gash just above her back right paw.

Over the next year, Macy would have some additional panic attacks, including the time she managed to jump a 6-foot fence in search of my wife and son. But over the course of six years, she eventually settled down.

Our next dog, a Treeing Walker Coonhound, came by way of our local Humane Society. He was sweet and docile – until the summer thunderstorms came rolling in each afternoon and the poor dog became a nervous wreck.

We pursued all kinds of remedies but eventually found that when we were out, keeping him in our bedroom worked best. Or so we thought. By then we had moved across town to a different house.

Out running errands in the midst of a torrential downpour one afternoon, my wife received a call from a new next-door neighbor, Ken.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he told her. “But Sawyer jumped out of your window and is balancing himself between the slats on the pergola over your porch. It’s raining and thundering and lightning.”

Almost 84 years of age at the time, Ken made his way over to the house with a neighborhood teenager and they somehow helped coax the wet and scared dog back inside.

Sawyer only seemed to calm down when sitting at another person’s side. His favorite place became my elderly father’s sunroom. My dad lived with us, and his health was beginning to decline. They enjoyed one another’s company.

The folly and foibles of our animals can simultaneously make us laugh and frustrate us to no end. They are very imperfect creatures – and depending upon their temperaments, breeding and backgrounds, they can come to us bruised and wounded, helpless beings yearning to be loved and understood.

Just like us.

Our pets can teach us many things, most especially patience and perspective. I sometimes wonder if God didn’t give us animals to both help and humble us, as well as remind us that while we’re ultimately reliant upon Him for everything that really matters, we too were once entirely dependent on someone else for every practical and physical want and need.

Yes, our pets become part of our families and they can provide enormous comfort and companionship along the way. But they also help us fulfill God’s command to serve outside ourselves. “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast,” we read in Proverbs, “but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.”

In other words, if you’re not treating animals kindly, you’re probably treating other people poorly also.

It’s unlikely that the account executive at Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, the advertising agency that dreamed up "Underdog," was thinking of the layered meanings behind the premise of an unlikely and seemingly unqualified hero coming to the rescue of those in distress. After all, it was just a tool to sell Cheerios and Wheaties, a silly kid’s television show with a pointless plot.

Or was it?

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In the end, I think we’re all called to extend that hand, make that gift, offer that hope to the lonely or hurting person in distress. After all, we're all imperfect and unqualified. We're all underdogs – called to serve other underdogs.

But just a reminder and a lesson learned the hard way – while you’re out doing your part, don’t forget to close your second-story window.

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