When nineteen-year-old black Labrador retriever mix Annie was left at an animal shelter by her former owners, she was given one month to live by the local vet. She was hardly eating and walking.
Fast forward four months later, Annie is living her best life with her foster family, Laura Siler and Lisa Flores.
Annie is now also going viral on Instagram, thanks to the doggie bucket list that best friends and roommates Siler and Flores are fulfilling with her.
Siler first saw Annie’s photo on the Dallas Animal Services Instagram page.
She was preparing to go on a trip when she saw Annie’s photo. Siler regularly fostered animals, typically neonatal cats, and also had her own pets. Her best friend and roommate, Flores, is also an animal lover and fully supports her in this advocacy.
When Siler reached out to the municipal animal shelter regarding Annie, she learned that the non-profit The Pawerful Rescue had already taken in the senior dog.
Siler got in touch with The Pawerful Rescue’s founders Stephanie Rowe and Duke Hemstreet, quickly becoming friends.
Before turning Annie over to Siler, Rowe and Hemstreet spoke to her about managing her expectations about how much time she would have with the aging dog.
“In the beginning, we were just excited to love on her and have her. So we didn’t really think much about how hard it would be to let her go. I think we are really just focusing on the joy that she was bringing to us at the time and just us enjoying loving on her and giving her all these great experiences,” Siler shared with TODAY.
The Pawerful Rescue provides financial support to Siler and Flores to help them with fostering costs.
Fortunately, Annie outlived her initial prognosis of having only one more month to live.
Siler and Flores are focused on making the most of their remaining time with Annie.
Since they’ve started caring for the senior dog, the best friends have thrown Annie a birthday party, had a professional photo shoot of her, gone on a burger tour, and gave her a spa “pawdicure”, among others.
Siler’s Instagram account @dallasanimalfoster shows everything they’ve been doing with and for Annie.
Followers have suggested other fun activities the best friends can do with Annie, including dressing her up in different costumes. Annie’s story has also been featured in national and local news articles.
The best friends recently added a new member to their family – an 18-year-old black male lab named Tippy, who they are also fostering. They all live together with Flores’ pet dog Jax and Siler’s cats, Moira and Jenny.
As more people learn and hear about Annie, Siler, Flores, Rowe and Hemstreet hope they can inspire more people to help other animals, especially seniors.
They want to show others how rewarding it is to love older dogs and animals.
Siler and Flores want people to know that it doesn’t take a “special” person to foster an elderly dog.
“It just takes someone willing to spend a little bit of time with an animal, somebody who’s going to commit to it for the rest of their life, especially for these seniors. They’ve given so much joy to somebody out there. Don’t be another person that let’s them down, just open your home and be committed to them,” Siler said.
See how Annie is living her best life in the account below.
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