Matti's Story….

Our Matti is a special rescue girl. On a day in late winter, UMR got a call from a shelter in Pennsylvania asking us if we could take a little female Maltese someone had just brought in. They felt she wouldn't survive in the shelter for any length of time. They also felt her chances of being adopted were slim. We immediately drove to pick up this little waif. However, we were totally unprepared for what we found - a tiny skeleton of a girl, with toothpicks for legs, a mouth full of infection, and an absolute terror of humans.

From a cage in Pennsylvania, Matti went to a warm and wonderful home in Virginia, where one of our Foster Angels would nurture her and care for her until she was healthy. Poor Matti was terrified. She hid at the back of her crate and wouldn't come out, even to eat. If anyone tried to touch her she screamed - not a bark or whine, but a scream of terror. We all feared for her health, but the vet pronounced her amazingly healthy for the condition she was in. The only real problem was the infection in her mouth. It was so bad that she would be on antibiotics for weeks. When she was ready, all of her teeth would need to be pulled. In the meantime, there was a lot of work to be done.

Bit by bit, Matti learned to trust and after several months of good food, vet care, and a lot of love and tenderness, she was almost 6 pounds, was less afraid of human hands, and nearly ready for her New Beginning. So, the search began for a perfect home for this little one. We had some pretty stringent requirements in mind: someone who was kind and gentle, someone who was home most of the day, and someone who understood that it might be a long time before Matti found her true Maltese nature.

When Matti's new parents finally appeared, they were everything we hoped for and more. Anne Marie and Chuck are both social workers with years of experience working with children in terror. They fell in love with Matti in the first instant, and wanted to take her home. But experience told them this might not be the best thing for Matti. So Matti made a couple of short visits to her new home to check it out before she moved her bed in. It may take Matti a while before she can trust in humans enough to fully return her new family's love, but at that first meeting she settled into Chuck's arms and after a while felt safe enough to go to sleep.

Matti will always be with us at UMR in our hearts, but her New Beginning with Chuck and Anne Marie will lead to a long and happy life filled with good food, safe shelter, love, and most importantly, peace.

Matti before

Matti after

Matti with her new family