Lita started out as a stray in a Houston park, sitting there calm as anything, like she already knew Mandy was coming for her. She spent the next eleven years proving one dog can do the work of ten. Therapy dog at nursing homes, schools, and libraries. Hospice volunteer who sat with people through their final days. Big sister to more than a hundred foster dogs, a few of whom she sat on, because she was The Boss and everyone knew it.

​In March 2025 she was given weeks to live. Lita took that personally, beat every timeline by more than a year, and worked through a bucket list while she was at it. Her story reached 55 million people and started Lita's Wish, a program that now helps other dogs with cancer chase lists of their own. She passed on May 28, 2026, having lived to see this garden nearly finished.