Abandoned by his Russian mother at 18 months, Vita lived like an animal. Dogs were his only company--until an amazing Christian couple in Moscow rescued him.
Jan. 30, 2009 -- Vita barked as loudly as he could. He was hungry because all the food in the dog bowl was gone. Two large dogs towered over him, adding their barks to his.
The walls of the small Russian apartment were thin, and the noise was constant. The barking continued unabated for days on end, yet the neighbors ignored it.
Terrible enough to leave dogs alone and pinned up with no food and water, but this was far worse. Living with these two dogs was a toddler.
But Vita, a sweet-faced blond boy, didn't know he wasn't a dog. How he was found and rescued is nothing short of a miracle.
"When Vita was born, his mother had taken him to the hospital for his initial vaccinations but never brought him back to finish his shots," says Lilit Gorelovi, the woman who today is his foster mother. "One of the hospital doctors happened to be looking back through the records and noticed that Vita had never received all his immunizations. This compassionate doctor visited the apartment, which he found locked.