rescue

from the CNN website; the closing paragraphs of a story describing how a dog rescued the seven-year-old son, Dinakaran, of a Tamil family, during the tsunami:

The Tamils of south India believe that talking about the death of a living person can make it so, so Sangeeta didn't want to mull over her decision or speculate how she would have felt had her son not survived.

She did say that she believes some special spirit, perhaps her brother-in-law's, resides in the young yellow dog.

"That dog is my God," said Sangeeta -- with Dinakaran sitting on the ground at her feet and Selvakumar sleeping on the warm asphalt next to him.