Hi, my name is Champ.  But most of my life I have felt like I was on the losing end of the fight.  I am a 4 year old Maltese and I weigh 6.5 pounds.   A healthy weight for me should be 7 to 7 ½ pounds. 

My former owners horribly neglected me.  They let me get completely matted to the skin.  The mats were soaked in urine and they were so tight that they were tearing my skin.  I have a large wound on my front left leg from something in a mat cutting into my skin like a knife.  My owners let the same thing happen a year ago.  A nice man found out and took me to the doctor and got me all fixed up.  All the owners had to do was get me groomed once a month.  But they did not care enough about me to even groom me once.  I found myself at a vet clinic again this week.  My former owners were going to put me to sleep because I was in such rough shape.  The vet convinced them to call the Angels instead.  In the before pictures, the vet clinic did a partial clip on me before the Angels arrived.  I came in looking much worse than those photos.  The vet clinic showed the Angels the large bag of full they had already cut from me. 

The Angels rushed me to their vet to see if they could help.  The vet cut all of that nasty matted fur off of me, gave me a dental and did blood work.  A young guy like me should not have had such nasty teeth, but they were in bad shape.  Luckily I did not lose any teeth though.  While I was sedated they thoroughly scrubbed my wound.  They said although it looks really bad it should heal very nicely now that the Angels are caring for me.   My blood work all came back in the normal range. 

My foster mom says that I am a very sweet boy.  I love to be near you and will bark if I cannot see you.  Once I learn to trust that the good people will not leave me and take me back to the bad people I am sure I will not be so anxious.  I love to be petted and I give lots of kisses.  I will be glad when I am all better and do not have to wear this collar anymore. 

All of this treatment was not cheap.  If you have a few spare dollars to send to the Angels to help with my vet bill, that would be great.  Things are really looking up for me, I finally really am the Champ now!