Brandi, age 11. Brandi is the typical crazy chihuahua who loves “her people” hard and will stop at nothing to protect them. She’s the leader of her pack (16 year old jack russell and 8 year old pomeranian) and was adopted when she was 10 weeks old. Brandi is always full of energy and happy— whether she’s playing with her millions of toys, chewing her bones, sunbathing or being a velcro pup. Out of no where one morning, she seemed to be low energy and not touching her breakfast— which isn’t too alarming, as she can be a picky eater sometimes. A day or two later, I discovered a lump on her elbow and immediately called her vet. Since it was not going away with medication, they wanted to remove it and send it for a biopsy. Brandi received her cancer diagnosis 6 days before Christmas of 2023. A month later, we were informed by the pet oncologist that it’s grade II soft tissue sarcoma and due to the location of the lump, she has incomplete margins and that it is anticipated to return within a year. The picture above is seven months post-op, on her 11th birthday— that was extra sweet. And today, we’re two weeks away from her one year anniversary of her lump removal surgery. Today she is just as crazy and happy as she was before her cancer diagnosis. She now visits her vet more often to check for any regrowths/new growths. And I now check frequently for any lumps on her and the rest of the pack. She’s a fighter. And we make the best of every day we have.