05/24/2026
To our wonderful Wheaten community who has supported Francesca, now Vita, through her journey:
This is an emotional love letter from me to you all!
In case you’re wondering, I changed her “litter” name from Francesca to Vittoria, Vita for short, meaning “life”… because I have always seen her as Vittoria della Vita: victory of life.
And with all of you standing behind her journey, she is showing us every day that she fully intends to live up to that name.
Because of your love, prayers, generosity, and encouragement, Vita is finally getting to experience something so simple and so beautiful: breathing freely.
Today, she took her first real walk up the hill to visit a neighbor. She ate softened kibble. Not soup, not purée, actual coarse food, and kept it all down. We will slowly build on that with hope she can eventually have kibbles/raw combo that every dog in our house has been eating.
Since coming home from the hospital Thursday, I haven’t heard that labored breathing once. And let me tell you, that silence is the most beautiful sound.
She slept through the night like she hasn’t slept in 10 weeks (probably quite literally). In the short 3 days, she’s stealing socks, unraveling toilet paper, chewing shoes, and causing exactly the kind of puppy chaos we prayed she’d live long enough to enjoy.
From the bottom of our hearts at Bavaria Hills Wheatens, THANK YOU! 🙏
To the Dehning family for setting up her GoFundMe, the Pinewski family for building her Bailey chair, the Oys family who will care for her next week while we go on our son’s college visits, and every single person who donated, prayed, followed along, shared, messaged, or simply cared… we are so deeply grateful.
If Vita could thank you herself, she would do it with a wagging tail, muddy pajamas, and probably a stolen sock as a gift to you.
Ps. She wears that pajamas not for fashion. She likes to roll around on the grass and tries to lick her wound, we are trying to keep her stitches clean and intact.