I accepted her as a foster dog. She was 14 months old and weighed 30 pounds.

Then they abandoned her.

Shady when I took her home at 30 pounds. The scars from the maggots
were evident on her ears, tail, and spots on her sides.

I named her Shy Shady Lady, from a song I remembered as a child, "The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane" . She was emaciated, but powerful and highly animal aggressive. Her behavior also gave clear testimony of how severely she had been beaten and abused. Despite her initially wanting to kill my older APBT, Chloe, and my elderly cat, she learned through frequent and positive obedience how to behave. As time went on, I called her only Shady, as she lost her shyness, and her ebullient behavior ruled her out as a 'lady'.

With top nutrition, tons of love, routine obedience and a quality of life never experienced before, Shady emerged as a stunning red and black brindle `pit', increasingly confident and in love with life.

Her life had become sweet; she was the model "pit bull". Small children could lay on the ground with her, and she greeted strangers with the wagging-est butt in town. She and Chloe could play as any two dogs could. She became intensely devoted to me, and learned the fine line between friends and those whose intentions weren't always so good. But most importantly, she LOVED LIFE!
I'd only had her 15 months when tragedy struck. Her lymph nodes blew. Over the next few months, diagnostics concluded clearly that she had lymphosarcoma, presumably due to her immune system being destroyed by her starvation.
She was given 14 months to live.

Mom ..... am I going to pull through
this okay?

Routine chemotherapy was begun with a veterinary specialist, and with the help of a spiritual friend, Shady was also started on an intense regimen of herbal and holistic therapies to support her immune system. My own veterinarian took over Shady's chemotherapy after the first six weeks, and my girl took it like a champ. One year went by. The chemo regimen was revised. At the end of the second year, the specialist advised to do a bone marrow punch, if it was OK, take her off the chemo. It was clear, but Shady had paid another price.