I was out of training when my daughter talked me into a weekend on Vermont’s Long Trail. I was exhausted when we threw our sleeping bags down among wall-to-wall crowds in a shelter.
For a while, I watched the other hikers milling around. One couple commanded their two large dogs to sit on their sleeping bags and, I thought, guard sleeping spaces for the four of them.
Halfway through the night I realized I was in serious medical trouble. I couldn’t move my feet or my left arm. To get aid I would have to crawl miles to a hospital if I could get out over the now-occupied sleeping bags in the shelter.
Finally morning dawned! I still couldn’t move my feet or my left arm, but I was breathing. As I reached for my glasses I chanced to look over at the dog people. Where were the dogs? I tried to turn over to see better, and there were the dogs, guarding me like their masters’ sleeping bags. The dogs smiled sleepily, rolled further onto my feet and left side and yawned as if to say “no need to move yet. Our people will be up in an hour or two.” I scratched an ear (it might have been the closest dog’s) and fell asleep. They really were toasty-warm dogs.
The poor man received no kindness from the rich man but, “even the dogs came and licked his sores.” - Luke 16:21

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