A Little Help for Gavin

I don't dress up my dog. I don't carry him around in little designer bags (even if I wanted to, my shoulder die-- he weighs 60lbs). I don't have pictures of him in my wallet. I don't even feed him leftovers from dinner. But I do love the little booger, and it's hard to imagine not having a dog in our daily routine.

Right now, there is a terrified, shivering pit bull in a cage at the pet hospital. He hurt his leg almost 2 weeks ago, and we thought it was nothing... but then he kept re-injuring it, and we finally decided to bite the bullet and pay for a trip to the vet.

To make a long story short, something is wrong with his knee-- it could be a bad sprain, but the vet seemed to be leaning towards a torn ligament (much like a human tearing their ACL). He's going to be sedated & have x-rays taken this afternoon, and then we get the news: whether or not he needs surgery.

The X-rays alone will cost about $400. The surgery could be anywhere from $1500 to $3000. Needless to say, that's a pretty huge financial investment for us. If he ends up needing the surgery & doesn't get it, he will eventually go lame.

As "missionaries", our salary comes from the donations of families, individuals and churches. I don't know how I would feel about spending $3,000 of people's tithes on a dog's surgery. But then, do we just let our little pup suffer & go lame? It's a tough question to face.

So, as silly as this sounds, would you pray for our mutt, Gavin? Would you pray that he doesn't need the surgery, and that we don't have to make a difficult decision like that? I'm convinced that God cares for all his creation, including a socially awkward, dumb-as-a-rock, sweet little rescue pup.

I know this isn't my normal blog style-- sorry about that. Just wanted to ask for a little help ;)

Update: The vet called back to say that she couldn't find a tear in his ligament, and that (for now) she didn't think he needed surgery. Hooray!

Strangely enough, when compared with a $3,000 vet bill, the $500 everything ended up costing didn't hurt quite as much. I guess poor Gavin won't be able to eat for the rest of the year, though. Actually, he is restricted to short, 10 minute walks, with no playing, wrestling, swimming or running for the next 2 weeks. As great of news as not having surgery was, I know this is going to be a long 2 weeks for all of us. Still, we are SO very grateful.