As I looked for her I found her to be listless and not wanting to move. I thought it must be this heat that has her feeling bad and brought her some water to drink.
Here I must rewind the story. Last year my son had gone to Dalhart, TX for an internship and he was gone again this summer. Dally is his dog. The summer of 2011 we found his blue heeler, Casey, dead. So when I saw Dally I thought "I can't let Dally die" and brought her in the house.
Thinking it was due to the heat, I thought once Dally was inside she would get better. But she just laid in one spot and would not eat or drink. I began to bring the water to her and she would drink a little. I would have to lift her up and carry her outside to do her business.
A day or two went by and she wasn't improving too much, so we began to doctor her with what we thought would help her. The thought came to me to try to feed her some chicken fat and she ate it from my hands. We began to give her power aide to drink. As long as I brought it to her she would drink. She still would not eat dog food but if I cooked her deer meat she would eat it from my hands. She didn't have the strength to stand up.
As the days progress she was not improving so I took her to the vet. His response, "Has she had her distemper shots?"
"Yes"
"We don't have record of it," says the doctor.
"No, sir. We gave her the shot."
"Well I believe she has distemper. I will give her a shot to help her with her breathing and a vitamin C shot, but I don't have much hope of her making it. If she happens to have a turn around then if you want to bring her back in the morning I will give her another vitamin C shot."
As I left the vet's office I began to pray for Dally. Now this would not have been my normal response to pray for an animal, but I had seen my friend Kathy Raburn's post on Facebook of how she had prayed for one of her dogs and God had answered her prayer.
I didn't want to loose another dog of Cole's! Besides when Dally was a puppy we had to bring her in the house because she had cut her eye and Cole didn't want her outside until the eye had healed. But who was the one who got up with her at 4:30 in the mornings so she could go outside to do her business. You guessed it me! But it was a good thing because it helped me to establish some new habits at that time of prayer. Dally was my prayer partner! HA! HA! So Dally and I had a special bond.
I don't remember exactly what I prayed I just know that I prayed and asked God to heal her. The next morning she did have a turn around so I took her back to the vet for another vitamin C shot. After that we began to give her Essence C in her water. Each day she would get a little better. She still would only eat cooked deer meat or cooked chicken fat. But at least she was beginning to walk, although robotically.
Soon Cole would be home from Texas. Thankfully each day Dally improved to the point when he got home had we not told him he would not have known she had been sick. She wasn't 100% but she was so much better than she was! She had a few set backs and we would start the regiment of vitamins and cooked deer meat again. But at last she was a 100%. Seven weeks ago she had a litter of puppies. She birthed 11 and 7 lived.
As I was in the garden 2 weeks ago I thought about last summer and how I had prayed and asked God to heal Dally. When I was a child and my mom prayed with us for anything she always ended the prayer, "and Lord we will be sure to give you the praise and the glory. In Jesus Name we pray. Amen."
So I want to give the praise and the glory to God for an answer prayer and to thank Him for healing Dally and giving us the guidance of how to take care of her.
Here is a picture of one of Dally's pups.
