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When our 14-year-old Lab/Pit mix died, our Aussie mix became despondent. We decided to look for another dog immediately. I searched rescues online for a small, nonshedding, young adult female and found one in the entire state. She was 15 miles away.

Photo: Karen Gray

She was a scrawny, blind-in-one-eye, half-shaved Shih Tzu that the rescue group had pulled off death row at a local kill shelter that week. They were calling her “Tangles.” She had been scheduled to be euthanized the day after they pulled her.

It seems she had wandered up to some woman’s house a year before, and the woman had “let her stay around,” which in this part of the world means she put food outside for her, and that was it. After a year, she took this matted, filthy, 11-pound, 3-year-old dog to a high-kill shelter and dropped her off.

She was trapped in her own mats, and her nails were curled under so badly that she could not walk. They couldn’t tell her breed, sex, or even her color. The rescue group bathed her, clipped her nails, shaved her mats off, vetted her, and put her up for adoption.

She looked like a little white Ewok, but she climbed over a cat and into my lap. It was love at first sight.

That night, she wandered through the entire house, jumped up on the loveseat, and made herself at home. She followed us upstairs at bedtime, jumped up on the bed, and has slept with us ever since. I called her “Lily,” and she came.

We soon found out she had severe food allergies and had to go on a grain-free kangaroo diet. A year later, she needed emergency eye surgery to save her remaining eye.

We now have three rescues, but Lily is very, very special. She is a survivor and an opinionated alpha. She takes her job as a lap dog very, very seriously. She is now one of three, but she is the princess. She is truly the light of our lives.

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Story submitted by Karen Gray from Durham, NC.

This story was originally shared on The Animal Rescue Site. Share your very own rescue story here!