Lilly Anne is a 13-year-old Husky/German Shepherd mix in Albuquerque, NM, who needs $2,000 for shoulder and leg amputation surgery and chemotherapy treatment.

The universe came together to bring Lilly Anne into my life thirteen years ago. Lilly Anne is more than a rescue; she is a survivor. By a miracle, as a three-month old puppy, she was rescued from a dog fighting ring, where she was being used as a “bait puppy,” and subsequently survived numerous lifesaving surgeries, including the reattachment of her left ear, which had been ripped off down to the ear canal.
What seemed like a series of unrelated events, would in retrospect be seen as an alignment of the stars that would bring us together. In the days proceeding our meeting, I had intended on adopting a different puppy from a local PetsMart, and had in fact, signed adoption paperwork and placed my deposit for the adoption. However, the following day I arrived to find the puppy had been mistakenly adopted by another person. In my despair over losing the puppy, I began my quest to find a Siberian Husky puppy to adopt, whereupon I stumbled across Lilly Anne’s description on the Animal Human Society’s adoption page. I immediately drove to the location only to discover that her information had been mistakenly posted by a new employee, as Lilly Anne was deemed “not adoptable.” Upon my demand for an explanation and my insistence that I be allowed to see her, the staff veterinarian escorted me to an area designated for injured and sick animals. As we approached her kennel, the veterinarian explained to me the circumstances leading to her arrival at the clinic and the unlikelihood of her survival past the upcoming two weeks because she refused to eat, drink, or interact with the staff.

Then I saw her, a small puppy, with bandages covering her legs and stomach and a cone around her neck, lying on the floor in the back of the kenneled area. Without hesitation, I opened the kennel door, slowly approached her, and sat on the floor near with my hand outstretched for her to smell and to allow her to get used to me and not feel threatened given what she had been through.

To everyone’s surprise and despite the damage to her little body and the grim prognosis given by the veterinarian and the surgical team at the hospital, Lilly Anne crawled across the floor and into my lap, turned her head upwards and meet my eyes, and as fate would have it, Lilly Anne was mine from that moment forward. Without allowing for room for argument, I insisted that I be allowed to adopt her, and two months later, after additional surgeries and daily visits to see her in the clinic, I received the phone call that Lilly Anne could come home.

While Lilly Anne’s story did not begin with happiness, from the moment she entered my life she has been loved so much that any past pain has long been overshadowed; she has been pampered with trips to the dog park and to the dog bakery for treats as well as Starbucks Puppachinos; and she has been spoiled rotten with any toy she could ever want, including a number of talking Elmo stuffed animals, which are her favorite.