Jaci Dawn

I am writing this to remind myself that God does, sometimes, work miracles for our fur friends/babies/whatever you want to call our pets and farm animals. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. I am hoping and praying for it tonight as my dog, Harvey, is very, very, lethargic and ill.

I saw God work a miracle when my little Arab/Appy horse, Whisper, inhaled a blackberry vine. The piece of vine was embedded so deep inside her nostril that the vet could not reach it and remove it. He gave me two options: we could send her to OSU Vet college, have them put her under, and cut open her face to remove the bramble. Or, we could leave it in place and worry that it would work its way further up her nostril, eventually killing her. Whisper somehow managed to sneeze the offending briar out in the next few days.

The biggest miracle that I have personally seen was the llama that died. My friend lived around the corner on a rural road. She called me in a panic: Joey, the llama, had tangled in his lead rope and managed to strangle himself. Would I come over, lay hands on him, and believe with her that Joey would live? Her kids were hysterical and the vet was forty minutes out.

I don’t even particularly like llamas. But I loaded up my kids and hurried over to my friend’s house, where I found an impossible scene: Joey’s neck was twisted in the wrong direction and he was definitely VERY still. I won’t swear that he was dead, but if he wasn’t, he was damn close. And his neck was – well, necks shouldn’t turn like that, even on a llama. He wasn’t breathing, and his eyes were glassy.

But we laid hands on him and prayed. And prayed. And suddenly, Joey inhaled. And his eyes opened up. And he turned his neck around, and we were able to get the lead off of his trachea. He was standing by the time the vet arrived, but his tongue was still quite blue. The vet didn’t quite believe he’d been out as long as my friend said he’d been out, but I don’t doubt her word: it took her time to call me, the vet, and for me to get there. Joey wasn’t breathing when I got there. The vet arrived twenty minutes after I did.

Sadly, a few weeks later, fueled by this coup, the same friend called me to come pray for a Freisian horse that was in distress at a vet clinic in Estacada. The owner had poured thousands of dollars into this horse and just couldn’t have it die. It died. I accepted that. I figured we were over-confident in OUR ability to pray things back into life, and maybe my heart wasn’t as much into the praying the horse back (because I didn’t know the owner, its history, or its intended future, but I did know that Joey was loved by four small children).

Heck, it’s the same with praying for human friends or acquaintances. Sometimes, you just *know* the prayer will be answered, and the person dies. Sometimes, you doubt the very prayer you just said, and a year later, the woman comes to find you to tell you she gave birth to a healthy baby, and thank you for praying she could conceive. It’s a mystery.

I don’t know why God chose to give Joey the llama a second chance. Or why God chose me to pray for the woman who wanted to get pregnant, but couldn’t. I only know God chose to answer those prayers.

I’m hoping God chooses to grant Harvey a longer life, and not at a huge financial expense for us. You can hate me, but there’s a limit to how much I will spend on a pet. I have ten grandchildren – finances are directed toward them, first. But – Harvey is my heart and soul tonight. I hope my readers understand. And pray/send positive thoughts for him. I need my Harvemeister.