NOT too long ago, a 7-year-old boy started e-mailing me at work, begging me to buy him a dog.

This child, whose birth I had the privilege of witnessing, went so far as to remind me that God made dogs, so obviously our family needed one.

“I’ll try my best not to pester you,” Brady’s e-mail said. “I hope you’re having a good time at work.”

My first reaction: “What a thoughtful, faithful young man I have raised!”

My second reaction: “His mother is obviously behind this! She knows I don’t like dogs!”

I responded the way any canine-shunning father would. I avoided the question.

“Love you, Brady,” I wrote back. “Thanks for the e-mail.”

“You’re welcome dad,” Brady replied quickly. “I want to be a writer like you when I grow up. Maybe I could write about dogs.

“I just have an empty place in my heart without a dog. Do you remember that part in ‘My Dog Skip’ where the mom tells the dad that every boy should have a dog? I think so, too. After the Dad let him keep the Dog, the Dad got nicer.”

Uh-huh.

By this point, I knew mother and son were working in cohesion.

Tamie is, after all, the same woman who brought home a pet frog and then decided this ugly amphibian needed a friend . So, much to our children’s delight, we own a frog who dives in the toilet and a hamster who runs noisy laps all night long.

Before long, I received another e-mail from my way-too-literate second-grader, this one with the subject line “dad – what I would do with a dog.”

The short version: Boy and Pooch would play Frisbee and take walks. Boy would keep Pooch full of Puppy Chow and water. Boy would play fetch with Pooch instead of watching television. Boy would give Pooch baths and sleep with him.

Blah, blah, blah.

I maintained my resistance, but God answered the prayers of a mom and her three animal-loving children.

How did He do that?

Well, He put three of the cutest puppies you’ve ever seen (if you like that sort of thing) in a cardboard box outside a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

The sign on the box said, “Dogs for sale: $10.”

Before I knew it, I was standing over the box, grudgingly admiring God’s handiwork. In about a half-second, Brady, Keaton and Kendall had fallen in love with one of the puppies.

“Can we take her home?” they asked in unison.

Tamie looked at me. I tried to frown, but all I could do was smile.

“OK,” I whispered.

So, we took this amber, tongue-wagging, 8-inch-tall creature home. The children even gave the 9-week-old Sheltie/Boxer mix a biblical name so Dad would have an excuse to write about her.

Sarah? Rebekah? Martha?

Nope.

They named her Honey.

“You do know about the land of milk and Honey, don’t you, Dad?” Brady asked.

So, now the Ross family numbers six – eight if you count the frog and the hamster. The newest addition stirs about 4 a.m. every day and whimpers until the children wake up and play with her. They happily oblige.

Honey has become such a part of the family that Keaton, 3, wanted to take her to church Sunday.

There are some things, however, that a dad just won’t do. Somebody, please, get the dog off my steering wheel.

Religion Editor Bobby Ross Jr. can be reached by e-mail at rross@oklahoman.com or by calling 475-3480. The following fields overflowed: SECTION = Oklahoma NOW! RELIGION – ETHICS – VALUES