I hope she finds the best home and is loved back to health and happiness.

It can take years and an immense amount of patience.

(It's rather the same as people, but easier with dogs, and much more likely to be successful.)

It helps to have someone at home 24-7, along with a well-behaved helper dog who is both tolerant of the new dog and willing to demonstrate ordinary cheerful dog behavior.

Nevertheless the vast majority of dogs have an extraordinary ability to recover from abuse and neglect. Dogs are by nature optimistic and joyful creatures, much more so than humans. I'm frequently amazed by them.

Back in the 1980's I had a Yellow Lab named Dusty. My son was wanting a Lab for a pet. I went to the Indianapolis Boat Sport and Travel Show that year and an Indiana retrievers club was selling raffle tickets on this little yellow lab puppy with championship bloodlines. So I spent one dollar and bought one ticket. I showed my grade school son when I got home the ticket showing proof that I was trying to get him one. He said I sure hope we win. I never dreamed I would actually win the puppy, but I did. Maybe my rural route address on the raffle ticket helped in the retrievers club decision???

Anyways I couldn't back out because I did promise my son. So we drove to Kokomo, Indiana and got the puppy. The whole family fell in love with him. There were times though when he tested me. Like the time I was watching TV and everything went snowy. I had a ten foot C Band satellite dish outside and there was Dusty chewing and yanking on the wires. He loved bringing me home things he found in my rural neighborhood. My neighbors left steel toe boot, and even a fold up lawn chair but I never did find out where that came from.

I never seen a dog so perfect for a young boy. When my son was in little league he would practice hitting the ball and of course Dusty was always eager to play. My son would hit the ball and Dusty with his tail wagging would run and retrieve it and drop it right at his feet. He loved swimming with the boys down at the creek. The boys would throw a rock in the water and Dusty would swim out to where the rock entered the water. But, then he would do something I never seen a dog do. He would swim underwater and bring up a rock and bring it back to the boy who threw the rock.

I had an old CJ 7 Jeep that Dusty thought was his. Anytime I fired up the old Jeep, Dusty would be there sitting in the passenger seat and slobbering all over the side window. One day I was cutting firewood on the farmers land down the road and of course Dusty had to go too. When we got there Dusty took off running through the woods and having fun and I started cutting down a huge dead oak tree. I downed the tree and was cutting it up in logs when I discovered I felled the tree on my best buddy. In tears I had to cut the tree off of him and load his dead body in my Jeep. This happened 30 plus years ago and I still cry whenever I think of that dog.

I love labs...I only have cats, but if I were ever to geta dpg, it'd be a lab...added bonus is they like cats.