I was on a 24-acre property taking professional photos for a home sale when the owner’s dogs approached me, barking loudly. I wasn’t concerned, because the dogs had also barked at my associate, who had passed by them unharmed when entering the home to speak with the owner.

As the dogs barked at me, I spoke soothingly to them and continued photographing the property. I love dogs and am not afraid of them. But suddenly, one of them clamped his mouth tightly around my leg, and I felt his teeth sink into my skin. I tried to shake him off, which was useless. 

No one was near to hear or help me. But I knew that God was with me, and I turned to Him for help. A verse in the first chapter of Genesis in Scripture immediately came to thought: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (verse 26). Also reassuring was a statement I recalled from the Christian Science textbook: “All of God’s creatures, moving in the harmony of Science, are harmless, useful, indestructible” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 514). This was just what I needed to know. I knew that God made all that was made, and that it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Therefore, I had dominion over the false belief that something exists apart from God and His creation and can be harmful.