Scruffy, our Mini-Schnauzer/part mutt, wasn't very big, but he was a very alert watchdog.
At one point, after we had him awhile, someone broke into our house. This invader kicked the back door in so hard that it pulled the door frame right out of the wall. He then proceeded to ransack two of our bedrooms and robbed some things from us. I can well imagine that Scruffy bit him more than once because he was very quick and very protective.
Somehow, in the "fray", the robber injured Scruffy's back. After that, every time we picked him up he would yip, so we took him to the vet. The vet x-rayed his back and discovered that one of the vertebrae was crushed. He said it was so bad that he didn't know how Scruffy could even walk. Surgery would have been $1,400.00, and we didn't have it. We took him home and prayed over him, and soon he was able to run freely again.
One day after that, as I opened our front door, Scruffy looked out and saw a cat across the street. One of his favorite things to do was chasing cates. (He never did catch one). Before I could get hold of him he bolted out the door, across the porch and took a flying leap out and over all six steps, landing on the cement walkway below. When I saw him leap I just closed my eyes, expecting that would be the end of his being able to walk. But the "leap" didn't seem to slow him down, for when I opened my eyes he was tearing across the street, barking at the cat. This proved to me that God had definitely healed his injury and strengthened his back.
The only after-effect he seemed to have was, as he got older, he tended to wake up a little stiff in the mornings. So we put his doggy sweater on him at night to keep him warm, and then gave him a baby aspirin each morning (vet's instructions). Soon he would be running all over the house and out in the yard.
© 2006 Arlene Schwartzkopf