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It's a sort of reflex. You meet Mateo here and your first three words are: "Poor little thing!"
Mateo
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FEBRUARY 2, 2022
It's a sort of reflex. You meet Mateo here and your first three words are: "Poor little thing!"
Or maybe it's not a reflex; maybe it's an instinctive thing. If that's the case, your instincts are right.
Mateo and her brother had people once: Nefarious people, bad people. By the time the dogs were rescued, they were broken. Mateo's brother did not survive.
Thanks to At-Choo Foundation's compassionate care, Mateo did. There was surgery, the loss of her eye, frailty to overcome. Her body healed. Her coat became glossy.
But Mateo is afraid of the world. Who can blame her, with the face the world has shown her? She hides and she trembles.
We're guessing you know what it looks like when a dog smiles. We're guessing it warms your heart.
Last weekend, Mateo traveled from Tijuana to Minnesota, where Anna was waiting for her. Anna's tender heart is built to heal broken ones - broken ones like Mateo's.
Your instincts told you Mateo is a Poor Little Thing, and you were right. Mateo's instincts told her Anna was gentleness and safety embodied, and she was right.
Sacred little Mateo surrendered to love. It didn't take months or weeks or day or even hours. Mateo just knew. Right away, Mateo smiled.
Thank you to Small Dog Rescue of Minnesota for welcoming Mateo to your little dog family. Thank you Elaine and the angel warriors of At-Choo Foundation, turning survival stories into love stories. Thank you to transporter Shawn, and to Anna. Seeing Mateo so happy is, like Mateo herself, a breathtaking gift.
To our entire Mutt Mutt Engine community: Thank you for a being our friend, and for making salvation stories like Mateo's possible.
Mateo, we love you.
It's a sort of reflex. You meet Mateo here and your first three words are: "Poor little thing!"
Or maybe it's not a reflex; maybe it's an instinctive thing. If that's the case, your instincts are right.
Mateo and her brother had people once: Nefarious people, bad people. By the time the dogs were rescued, they were broken. Mateo's brother did not survive.
Thanks to At-Choo Foundation's compassionate care, Mateo did. There was surgery, the loss of her eye, frailty to overcome. Her body healed. Her coat became glossy.
But Mateo is afraid of the world. Who can blame her, with the face the world has shown her? She hides and she trembles.
We're guessing you know what it looks like when a dog smiles. We're guessing it warms your heart.
Last weekend, Mateo traveled from Tijuana to Minnesota, where Anna was waiting for her. Anna's tender heart is built to heal broken ones - broken ones like Mateo's.
Your instincts told you Mateo is a Poor Little Thing, and you were right. Mateo's instincts told her Anna was gentleness and safety embodied, and she was right.
Sacred little Mateo surrendered to love. It didn't take months or weeks or day or even hours. Mateo just knew. Right away, Mateo smiled.
Thank you to Small Dog Rescue of Minnesota for welcoming Mateo to your little dog family. Thank you Elaine and the angel warriors of At-Choo Foundation, turning survival stories into love stories. Thank you to transporter Shawn, and to Anna. Seeing Mateo so happy is, like Mateo herself, a breathtaking gift.
To our entire Mutt Mutt Engine community: Thank you for a being our friend, and for making salvation stories like Mateo's possible.
Mateo, we love you.

MARCH 28, 2022
There’s just something about Mateo….the way she molds herself into your embrace; the way she avoids eye contact at first ( a remnant of her miserable past) then meets your glance with a sort of absolute vulnerability. Mateo has been exploited, neglected, abandoned and worse, and yet her want for love – and her instinctual knowledge that it must exist even though her life began without it – is deep, and deeply moving. For Mateo, Love was a Lost City. She’d find clues. She held an unshakable belief in it. And through all her hardships, she never stopped looking for it.
Now, Mateo’s paradise has been found.
Mateo’s fosters were seasoned. They’ve worked with many shy little dogs with sad stories. Some might call them experts at giving love with saint-like patience: Expecting nothing back, waiting and coaxing and making broken dogs whole again with a healing consume of security, time and tenderness. Many lucky dogs have passed through their School of Love, finally ready for a home of their own.
But there’s just something about Mateo. Their little pupil was already home the day she entered their lives. And now, some months later, it’s official. Congratulations to Mateo and her forever family. They’ve all earned this victory of love.
Mateo is alive because At-Choo Foundation saved her. Their work in Tijuana is rarefied and unique, sponsoring medical costs for some of the toughest medical cases in a very tough town. Thank you At-Choo Foundation. And thank you Small Dog Rescue of Minnesota for welcoming Mateo – and her foster family – into the fold, another part of the magic fate that enables Mateo's story of survival and happiness.
Thanks to our Mutt Mutt Engine community for finding Mateo’s foster home, and for sponsoring the journey that kind fate intended. Once again, magic has happened, thanks to you.
Mateo, we love you.
There’s just something about Mateo….the way she molds herself into your embrace; the way she avoids eye contact at first ( a remnant of her miserable past) then meets your glance with a sort of absolute vulnerability. Mateo has been exploited, neglected, abandoned and worse, and yet her want for love – and her instinctual knowledge that it must exist even though her life began without it – is deep, and deeply moving. For Mateo, Love was a Lost City. She’d find clues. She held an unshakable belief in it. And through all her hardships, she never stopped looking for it.
Now, Mateo’s paradise has been found.
Mateo’s fosters were seasoned. They’ve worked with many shy little dogs with sad stories. Some might call them experts at giving love with saint-like patience: Expecting nothing back, waiting and coaxing and making broken dogs whole again with a healing consume of security, time and tenderness. Many lucky dogs have passed through their School of Love, finally ready for a home of their own.
But there’s just something about Mateo. Their little pupil was already home the day she entered their lives. And now, some months later, it’s official. Congratulations to Mateo and her forever family. They’ve all earned this victory of love.
Mateo is alive because At-Choo Foundation saved her. Their work in Tijuana is rarefied and unique, sponsoring medical costs for some of the toughest medical cases in a very tough town. Thank you At-Choo Foundation. And thank you Small Dog Rescue of Minnesota for welcoming Mateo – and her foster family – into the fold, another part of the magic fate that enables Mateo's story of survival and happiness.
Thanks to our Mutt Mutt Engine community for finding Mateo’s foster home, and for sponsoring the journey that kind fate intended. Once again, magic has happened, thanks to you.
Mateo, we love you.