Tessie's story is a real heartbreaker. If anyone ever deserved a great New Beginning, it is our Tess (now Mae). Tessie and her sister were simply left on the steps of a local shelter. It was a few minutes after closing, and someone just knocked on the door, dropped the girls' leashes, and walked away. Luckily someone was still inside the shelter and found them before they ran off and were lost or killed in traffic.

Tessie's sister was adopted in a day or so, but Tess had mammary tumors that needed surgery (and could have been a death sentence), so the shelter asked us to take her in. The first thing we learned about this sweet girl is that she "honked" instead of barking. When our vet saw her, he told us why: someone had rather cruelly performed surgery on Tess to debark her. We also learned that she had had at least one litter of puppies, maybe more.

Poor Tess apparently had just been thrown away at age 7 or 8, when she was of no more use to her "owner." After surgery, we learned that Tessie's tumors were benign and started looking for a new home for her. She was such a dear, sweet girl and oh-so interested in finding out about anything that looked like fun. We really wanted her to have a very special home to make up for the past.

Tessie's New Begining as Mae…

When we got an application from Nina, we were sure she was "the one" for Tess. As it turned out, Nina had adopted Basil (a little boy Maltese who also had a not-so-happy past) and was connected to us through our friends at Metropolitan Maltese Rescue in New York City. No one could have had more glowing references then Nina and Elizabeth. And, we knew what great work they had done with Basil. So off Tess went to meet Nina, Elizabeth and (uh-oh) Basil.

Nina and Elizabeth were enchanted with Tess from the start; Basil, no so. But the humans were willing to work on the dogs' issues to make sure both kids had a great life. Initially there was a lot of "puppy bombing" going on, but as the days passed the two dogs came to a sort of detente.

Nina wrote us that she decided to show them who was REALLY the Alpha dog, so in the midst of a doggie growling session, she got down on the floor and roared out a growl at the two pups--that was the beginning of the end of the fighting. We are so happy that Nina and Elizabeth were just plain committed to making this work. Mae is now in a home where she will be loved and pampered for the rest of her life. Soon all that love will soon erase the horrors of her past.