What Chico Teaches Me about Self-Control
Author: Chuck King
October 21, 2026
Karen and I are raising a puppy for Canine Companions for Independence, an organization that provides need-specific service dogs at no cost to their human companions. Each puppy has its own character, strengths, and challenges. Our first two puppies successfully completed six months of professional training after leaving our care and are now paired with people with whom they live and will serve for years to come. It is a privilege to have a part in that substantial gift to another person.
Now Chico … we’re just not confident that he will go the distance. In November we will take him to the training center—aged 16 months—and pray that the professionals can make something of him! He is a character, and a handful, and a delight, and a challenge.
All these dogs are smart (they are a Golden Retriever/Labrador mix), and Chico may be the smartest of the three with which we have been entrusted. He learns quickly and likes learning. He quickly mastered about 25 cues, leaving us with time to address some important skills related to self-control.
Talk to us about Chico, and we’re likely to roll our eyes and despair of success. He is now, after all, in an adolescent phase, which complicates his life and ours on multiple levels. But there is some evidence of maturity.
Chico’s superpower is “wait” or “stay.” With both cues, he has to stay in place until he is told “release” or given another cue. This superpower has grown stronger and has made me consider that “Wait” and “Stay” are examples of self-control that I need to learn. When I am impatient, and when flight is my conflict response, I need to hear the Lord’s cues: “be still and wait upon the Lord” (Psalm 37) and “[The Lord] will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him” (Isaiah 26).
Dogs in our program are never allowed to eat off the floor. The Labrador part of Chico is naturally voracious; he’ll eat anything, and as much of it as he can. Some of our training exercises are designed to offer greater reward for avoiding food than for snarfing it up. One of these exercises is especially hard for him, and especially fun for me. I put Chico in a stay, walk away, and then place, drop, or toss food between him and me.
Then I call him to come to me. I love how he navigates that short journey: he turns his head, he hugs the wall away from the food, and when he can, he actually goes the long way—down a hall and through another room—to get to me. He really wants that food, and he really wants to please me by successfully leaving it alone.
In those occasions Chico is avoiding temptation. It is classic Christian living—when facing temptation, avert your eyes, turn away, take the long way around to get where you want to be. The short-term score of a few kibble is nothing compared to the relationship gained, and hand-fed kibble in the bargain! By faith Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season (Hebrews 11). And No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man; but with the temptation there is a way to overcome it (1 Corinthians 10).
Oh, Chico has a long way to go for sure. He needs to develop more self-control. We’ll do what we can, and we pray that his professional trainer can help him bridge the gap!
Meanwhile, I feel like the Lord has given Chico to us as my Canine Companion for Dependence on Him.
Chuck King is Music Director of New Covenant Church in Naperville, Illinois.
Image: Chico relaxing at the Morton Arboretum.
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