She finally got a mom who loves her — and a brother too. Someone at the animal shelter said this little abandoned Chihuahua was mean. Too mean, apparently, for a regular cage at the California shelter.
So staff members decided to take no chances and put Lola behind not one but two cells.
Hope still managed to slip through the cracks.
Staff members figured she was too aggressive to take any chances with, according to Nicola Grice, the woman who would eventually adopt her.
Grice, who lives in British Columbia, Canada, heard about Lola’s plight through a rescue group and decided to take a chance on her.
One of the first things this tiny Chihuahua did when she got out of that shelter in 2013?
“When I took her to our vet for the first time, she fell asleep in her arms,” Grice tells The Dodo. “Yup, that’s an aggressive dog for you.”
And when Lola got home to meet her brother, a Chihuahua named Chip, who was also rescued from a shelter, the pair hit it off immediately.
Against all odds, this snaggle-toothed, wonky-eyed dog had found her way home.
But years later, Lola suddenly found herself again fighting for her life. In early May, Lola was getting ready for bed when she suddenly collapsed.
After a night at an emergency hospital, a veterinarian determined the grim diagnosis: hemolytic anemia.
But not yet, Lola.
Not after she had finally found her place in the sun.
Lola embarked on an epic medical odyssey: blood transfusions, medication, tests, and more.
Finally, it seemed, Lola’s aggressive side emerged. She is a fighter.
And she battled her condition for months. In the same way, she stared down a battery of conditions shortly after leaving the shelter – major dental work, an umbilical hernia.
