At the age of 15, Fanny found herself alone. All alone. Very much all alone.

Fanny’s owner had just died, and the Tibetan spaniel was left in her San Fernando Valley home. Fanny, a champion in her younger days, was left by her owner’s relatives without food or water. They took the furniture in the house but evidently decided that a living being wasn’t worth saving.

Can you imagine being a very senior citizen whose nice life has been turned on its head? Being abandoned without so much as a bowl of water? That’s what happened to this sweet, gentle old girl who was left by “family” to – presumably – starve.

Her breeder, Pat, wanted Fanny to return to her. But Pat lives in New Jersey, and a five-hour, 3,000-mile plane ride in cargo simply wasn’t going to happen for this little girl with the adorable white face. Pat contacted Susan Miccio, the national rescue coordinator for the Tibetan Spaniel Club of America. Susan contacted me.

Susan and I have worked together through the years to get homeless Tibetan spaniels back on their paws. Just a few months ago, Shamrock took in PingPong and Pepper, two young ladies whose owner had died suddenly. We were alerted to them by Susan. Before we retrieved them from their owner’s family (who in this case was more than happy to step in for them but was unable to give them a good home), we had a new owner in mind. The girls are now happily ensconced in Orange County with their new mom and Cavalier King Charles spaniel brother.

So, when Susan reached out to me about Fanny, I didn’t hesitate. Of course I would help her. I spoke with Pat, telling her I already had fosters in mind, my friends Lisa and Andy, who have cared for little fuzzy Shamrocks many times. She agreed that if we could find a good home for Fanny, that would be best.

And, although the relatives of Fanny’s mom didn’t care, friends of hers did. A wonderful couple rushed to the house where Fanny had been abandoned and picked her up. They kept her overnight at their home in the Valley, where I got her the next day. Then it was off to LA, where Andy and Lisa’s vet examined her, cleaned her teeth, and proclaimed her very healthy for her age.

I had barely posted her information on Facebook when Nancy Clark, who adopted sweet Merry from Shamrock last year, posted that she would like her.

“To foster or adopt?” I asked.

Her answer: “Adopt.”

Just eight days after coming to Shamrock, Fanny arrived at her new home. She fit right in, and, Nancy says, she and Merry have become best buds. They’re the Golden Tibbie Girls. (We think Merry might have just a little Tibbie in her, and even if she doesn’t, we’re making her an honorary one.) Watching Fanny wander around her new backyard, my heart filled with light and happiness. I can’t bear to see any creature suffer, but an old, abandoned dog just breaks my heart.

But, thanks to the village that helped Fanny, the break of a week earlier had been healed