"He's fine," John answers instinctively, although it takes him a moment or two to catch up with what's just happened. There's a voice, someone has asked him a question, but it hadn't been aloud. The question had come from inside his head and it hadn't felt like something Samaritan might have done.

Looking down curiously at the dog, he doesn't say anything else. Instead he runs his hands over the dog's ribs, down the dog's legs, then sits back, satisfied nothing is broken.

"You're alright," he says. He doesn't know what to make of what he's just heard. "Come on, let's see if you can walk."