The Dog

“Are you praying?” Alan asked his staff at the veterinary clinic. They nodded yes. They all knew this was the little dog’s last chance before Alan would have to give up on trying to get the sewing needle out of its throat. And if Alan couldn’t get the needle out, the little dog would be in terrible pain. As for the needle, it would either stay in the throat or it would pass through the digestive track and possibly rip the little dog’s insides. Either alternative was too terrible to let happen, and surgery was out of the question because the throat would have had to be cut in half.

There was really only humane way to help a little dog with the needle. The little dog would have to be put to sleep. The sweet older lady who owned the dog would be brokenhearted.

Unless. Unless Alan could somehow reach into the dog’s throat with the forceps and catch the needle. Alan couldn’t see or feel the needle that had shown up on the x-ray. He had tried repeatedly to grip the needle with the forceps, but he couldn’t seem to feel it at all. Eventually, he would just have to stop trying. That’s when he asked if the staff were praying. Alan prayed too.

“Oh Lord,” he said. “It would mean so much to this lady, if she could keep her dog.”

Then he reached into the throat one last time and gripped with the forceps. When Alan pulled the forceps out, he found he was holding a thread. Then at the end of the thread, so close to slipping off, was the needle, now dangling in the air.

“Lord,” Alan said. “It was so sweet of You to save this dog.”

The dog went home that afternoon with his owner.