Although I love all of my pets the same, my yellow lab mix Scheyer will always have a special place in my heart because he was my first pet I owned as an adult – my first “child” if you will. He also was instrumental in restoring my belief that God, in all things, works for the good of His children.

Only three weeks after moving to a big city for a job at a large law firm, I could no longer stand it – I had to get a dog. I had never in my life lived by myself and coming home to an empty apartment each night was really starting to get to me. The Saturday before Christmas, I decided to go to the Humane Society and pick out my dream dog. The timing made no sense because I had planned to leave just a few days later to go home to Delaware for Christmas, but my desire for a dog was an irresistible magnet drawing me to the Humane Society that day. Confident that I could convince my friends to watch my new dog for a few days, I headed to the shelter.

A young volunteer, who had the height of a teenager, but the innocent face of a young child said, “Excuse me ma’am. You should come look at this dog. He’s the sweetest dog I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” He pointed towards a playpen and in there was a yellow lab puppy – not a young puppy, but I guessed he was around 6 months old. I went into the pen and the sweet boy began wagging his tail. I sat on the bench, and the pup jumped up beside me, laying his head on my lap. He gazed up at me with his beautiful big brown eyes. I hadn’t planned on getting a puppy due to my busy work schedule and I had never owned a boy dog. But there was no doubt – this puppy was meant to be my baby boy.

I told the young volunteer I wanted to adopt the puppy. He informed me that the pup’s name was “Snowflake” and that he had only been at the shelter for a few days. One thing I noticed about “Snowflake” is that he wasn’t jumping around and acting hyper as one would expect a six month old lab puppy to do. He had also coughed a few times. The boy explained that he was worried that Snowflake might be sick and also that he did not like the noise from the other dogs. Adopting a potentially sick dog may have deterred a more sane person, but for a crazy dog lover like me, I wanted to get him out of the shelter as soon as possible and get him better. While the volunteers were processing the adoption paperwork, I was thinking I cannot call this dog Snowflake. Snowflake would be appropriate for a cute little miniature poodle, but not for a yellow lab with the potential to grow to be 80 pounds. I said to him, “You don’t look like a Snowflake.” The poor baby was visibly very underweight and, except for his ears and a few freckles of brown fur on his snout and legs, he looked more like a “white” lab than a yellow lab. All of sudden the name of my favorite skinny white guy – Jon Scheyer, star of the 2010 National Championship winning Duke basketball team – popped in my head. “How would you like to be called Scheyer [pronounced Shy-er]?” The pup perked up, wagged his tail and gave my hand a lick, indicating his approval.

I could not take Scheyer home that day because he had to be neutered before leaving the shelter, so I could not pick him up until Monday. With tears in my eyes, I left poor Scheyer, smothering him with hugs and kisses and promising that I would be back for him soon. On Monday, I picked Scheyer up and he was so excited to see me – I was relieved he remembered me. When I took Scheyer to my apartment, instead of exploring his new home, as a normal puppy would do, Scheyer immediately went to the corner, curled up in a ball and fell asleep. I thought this was very odd.

A few hours later, Scheyer started coughing so badly I ended up calling the animal emergency room. They told me to bring him right away. Scheyer was diagnosed with distemper – a canine virus which first attacks the respiratory system, then the digestive system and finally the brain. Dogs who contract the virus have about a fifty percent survival rate. Scheyer had pneumonia (a sign the virus had attacked his respiratory system) and beginning signs of digestive issues. I was devastated, but also determined that Scheyer would be in the fifty percent that survived.

For two weeks, I had to take Scheyer to the vet every day so that he could go in a special chamber where he would inhale medicine to help heal his lungs. The first day I dropped Scheyer off, he looked devastated – the technicians literally had to drag him away from me. I sobbed as I left the vet’s office because I feared Scheyer thought he was being “turned back in” to a pound. I’ll never forget the look of elation on Scheyer’s face when I picked him up that day. After the first few days he seemed to understand that I would come pick him up at the end of the day.

I had to give Scheyer a variety of different medicines and take Scheyer’s temperature frequently – neither of which he liked. He struggled as I pried his mouth open to shove down various pills (he would not take pills in any foods I tried). He yelped when I had to take his temperature. Between abandoning him at the vet every day and torturing him with these treatments, I was worried whether this rough start to our relationship would affect my bond with Scheyer. How could he understand that everything I was doing was for his own good? Would he love me less or have less of a sense of loyalty to me because he thought I was intentionally trying to harm him? I was pretty sure given some of Scheyer’s behaviors he was abused by his previous owners. Would he be able to differentiate my behaviors from those of his past abusers?

Scheyer turned out to be a lot more insightful than I gave him credit for. Although he did not like going through this treatment, he never growled or snapped at me. He kept looking at me with a look of absolute adoration. He quickly became very protective of me – as you would expect a male lab-mix to be. Somehow he understood – all of the painful, scary experiences were for his own good. He trusted that I had his very best interest at heart, even though I am sure he did not fully understand why he had to go through the frightening medical treatment.

Scheyer’s love for and belief in me challenged my perceptions of God. There were so many things that happened in my life that I did not understand. My heart condition as a child. My mother’s illness that forced my family to file for bankruptcy. Family members who were emotionally and physically abusive. At times I doubted whether God really had my best interests at heart – what could be the point of all of this suffering? But there was always a part of me that wanted to believe that God is good and that He cares for me. Although it did not happen overnight, seeing Scheyer’s faith in me, an imperfect human being, inspired me to start trusting the God who created the Universe. Just as Scheyer trusted in me, I started to believe that all of the hardship I experienced growing up had a good purpose in God’s greater plan for my life. Once I opened my heart to attempt to trust in God more, the scales fell off my eyes and I began to see the good that came from previous struggles in my life. I could write a book about the good that has come from my struggles, but overall these hardships taught me to be resourceful, compassionate towards others and to enjoy the simple things in life.   Looking back, the intense desire I felt to get a dog the Saturday before Christmas was not a coincidence. God had a plan to save Scheyer’s life and to restore my faith in the process.