In 2004, Galina Coleman slipped and fell at work not far from where she lived in Petaluma.  She had five surgeries for the injuries she suffered.  In the wake of that personal catastrophy and disillusioned with her marriage, she got a divorced and moved to Southern California.

Today, estranged from her former husband and two sons, she lives in Aliso Viejo and struggles to pay her bills. She was declared totally disabled in 2006 and lives on a Social Security disability check.

“I’m just really struggling,” she said.  “I’m in affordable housing.  My rent is $1,398 a month, which is ‘very affordable’ here. However, for me it’s just really, really difficult.  I’ve tried to get jobs but it just hasn’t worked out for me.  I have two senior dogs and a senior cat and I know they’re basically at the end of their lives.”

Late last November, her struggles came into clear perspective when Abby, her nearly 14-year-old Dachshund, appeared to be having a digestive issue.  “When I took her to a veterinarian, the doctor discovered a heart murmur. She thought it was pretty serious and prescribed medication for Abby after doing an x-ray,” Galina said.

Later, she took the dog to Dr. Lynn Sanchez, a veterinarian she said she likes and trusts at Garden Grove Dog and Cat Hospital.  Dr. Sanchez recommended an electrocardiogram to get a clearer idea what Abby’s problem was.  But Galina could not handle the cost.  She applied for an Angel Fund grant and was awarded $451, a sum that was matched by the hospital.

Abby got the electrocardiogram in late December – and with it some good news: the murmur was not as bad as originally suspected.  “Dr. Sanchez said that everything looked pretty good and prescribed three medications,” Galina said.  A week later, when she took Abby back for a recheck, two of the medications were discontinued.  “One of them was really hard on her kidneys,” she said, “so I was really glad to get rid of it.”

After another recheck early in January, the dog is continuing to take Vetmedin.  “She’s not in heart failure but has some damage to a mitral valve,” Galina said.

When Galina divorced, she took her animals with her.  “I have tried to help them on a piecemeal basis,” she said. “I’ve had to rely on charity.  They’ve all been in pretty good health but now they are at the point where that’s starting to change [because of their ages].”

Augie, Abby’s brother, is two years younger at 12.  Aurora, her cat, also is 12.  Galina believes that Augie will need a dental treatment soon.

“I’ve been given the blessing of having these animals – they are just truly a blessing for me.  I am their steward and I need to make sure they get whatever is needed to take care of them. I have to do that.

“Had I not been able to do this [echocardiogram], I would either have been giving Abby way too much medication or no medication at all.  It wouldn’t have been good either way.  it was going to be detrimental to her health one way or the other.”

Galina is grateful to Angel Fund.  “They really helped me out,” she said.  “It is a wonderful thing to help people because things can be so expensive.  I think it’s a really great thing for veterinarians to give back.  I admire them for doing that.  I think that’s what we’re all here for – to give back.”

She is thinking about moving with her animals to a place – perhaps New Mexico – where her disability check would go further.  She is 58 years old.

“I have ignored a lot of my life for these dogs.  But, in return, they’ve provided me with something,” she said.  That something is love and support.

Dr. Weldy Has Devoted His Career to Exotic Animals

By Jim Bell

When Scott Weldy was a kid in Mission Viejo, he would go hiking in the hills, catching snakes, lizards and other animals and bringing them home.  “I’ve always been interested in exotics,” he said.

That is probably more true now than it was then.  Dr. Weldy owns Serrano Animal and Bird Hospital in Lake Forest and he spends much of his time treating exotics of all species in three zoos and at his practice.  He also is director of the Orange County Bird of Prey Center.

On February 1 at the SCVMA Annual Celebration he will be presented with the prestigious Cortese-Lippincott Award.  That will be a special moment for Dr. Weldy.  He knew both men for whom the award is named but Dr. Joe Cortese was a good and special friend. He had met Dr. Larry Lippincott but did not know him well.

“I really loved Joe,” he said in an interview.  “I was a technician when I first met him. It’s an honor to be up there [for this award], especially because of Joe.  He was such a gem to me.  He was a good doctor but he was a great guy, too.  If I could be half the person he was, I’d be in good shape.  My wife Marie and I really enjoyed his wife Goldee – both of them.  They were nice people.

“The only reason most people get recognized,” he said, “is because they’re surrounded by a team of people that keeps them honest and humbled.  I’ve got a good group of people around me.  We’re all part of a good team and they support me.”

Dr. Weldy moved his practice to a new facility last January, more than doubling its square footage.  Five doctors work in the facility, two of them part time.

“Tuesdays we do the Santa Ana Zoo all day and Thursdays we spend most of the day at the Orange County Zoo, then finish up in Santa Ana,” Dr. Weldy said.  “There are always two of us.

“We go to the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound in Rosamond near Palmdale as we’re needed.  Sometimes we stay overnight.  It’s a breeding center for endangered species.  They’re all exotic types: ocelots, leopards, jaguars.”  He is the veterinarian of record there.

Dr. Weldy took over the Bird of Prey Center in 1990.  Now that his new hospital is up and running, his major goal, he said, is to get the center up to par.  “That’s the last major goal of my career,” he said. “It’s a nonprofit organization.  I’m the medical director and director of the operation.  The center focuses on raptor education, rehabilitation and release.

“It’s a dream I’ve been working on since 1998.  We have a chunk of land that has some cages on it and a small building.  We’re slowly building up the cages.  It’s a temporary facility right now but we do educational programs.  The center is tucked in the back area of Rancho Las Lomas in Santiago Canyon.”

The new center is being built off El Toro Road behind O’Neill Park on land generously leased by Orange County Parks, he said.  Eventually, it will be able to provide medical and educational functions and will be the Bird of Prey Center’s permanent home, replacing the Rancho Las Lomas facility.

“We’re trying to get grants and public money.  We’re also wrapping up endowments and trying to raise money to accomplish our goals,” Dr. Weldy said.  The center rehabilitates injured hawks and owls and releases them.

Raptors needing medical care are treated at Serrano Animal and Bird Hospital.  “That’s all free stuff,” Dr. Weldy said. “No one pays for it.  We’ve also treated racoons and bobcats, ring-tailed cats and weasels.

“We don’t do small birds.  We work with wildlife biologists, the U.S. Geological Survey and people in mountain lion groups.  Most of the time when wildlife is brought into the practice it’s by Animal Control, and sometimes by good sam[aritan]s.”

Dr. Weldy loves the desert.  “I still go out and hunt reptiles and stuff like that,” he said, “but now I hunt them for photos.  I’m more of a desert person than anything.”

Her loves restoring old cars.  He has a 1961 Volvo that is fully restored and a 1969 Camaro that is nearly restored.  He also has a ’67 Camaro in waiting.  The Volvo is a special car.  It has been in his family since it came off the show room floor.  “My grandmother owned it then.  It later became my first car.”

He loves driving “muscle cars” – and his motorcycle, he said.  He is planning a motorcycle trip to “Bike Week” in Daytona, Fla., with friends in March.  “I have relatives and friends all the way across the southern United States so we’ll see part of the U.S. and spend a couple of weeks doing it,” he said.

Dr. Weldy came to Southern California in 1966.  He earned a BS degree in 1979 and a DVM degree in 1985, both from UC Davis.  He returned to Orange County and El Toro Animal Hospital, where he had worked as a teenager, after he became a doctor. He worked there 10 years before starting his practice in 1996.

The year 2019 has not been a good one for Dr. Weldy.  Wife Marie died of cancer last May – eight days after his mother died.   He has a daughter, Jennifer, 34, who is a registered veterinary technician.  She is teaching at Orange County Veterinary Assistant School in Garden Grove, where she had studied.  His son, Robert, 30, does research work in human neurology.

Besides cars and motorcycles, Dr. Weldy loves travel and scuba diving.  “Almost everything I do is related to animals,” he said.  “There has got to be an animal in it somewhere.”

The Animal Health Foundation’s Cortese – Lippincott Award was created to recognize and honor an individual who has gone above and beyond in making the world a better place for both animals and humans.  The winner of this award has gone above and beyond in community service, service and education of the veterinary community and the human-animal bond.

The award was named in honor of veterinarians Larry Lippincott and Joe Cortese.

One day last October, Yolanda Magallanes, took Trojan, her four-year-old pit bull mix, to get some exercise in the park across the street from her Fountain Valley home as she frequently does.  All went well until it was time to go home.

“He didn’t want to walk,” Yolanda said. “He didn’t want to go anywhere.” And when they entered her house, he defecated on the floor. “That was not normal for him. I figured he had a little tummy ache.”

When she went to bed that evening, Trojan did not come in to sleep with her. “He has done that since day one. He just wanted to lie on the tile floor.” He was lying in the same spot when she got up in the morning.

Before leaving for work, Yolanda called her sister, Irene Caudillo, and asked her to come get Trojan and take him to see her veterinarian, Dr. Mark Malo at Garden Grove Dog and Cat Hospital.  She met her sister there.  Dr. Malo did not have good news: He said that the dog was in bad shape and might be dying, she said.  He wanted to take x-rays and install an IV.

When Yolanda returned a couple of hours later, Dr. Malo said that the x-rays showed a large mass and that Trojan needed surgery.  He asked her to take the dog to a specialty hospital.

After what she described as a “royal” welcome for Trojan, the specialty hospital did an MRI and “put me in a room and said the doctor would be in soon to talk to me.”   When the doctor entered, Yolanda said, she was told that her dog had a large mass and needed surgery immediately.  There was a 65% chance that the mass was cancerous, the doctor said.

The doctor told her: “Your choice is either emergency surgery now or put him down.  If you’re keeping him alive, it’ll cost you $6,000 to $8.000 for the surgery.   And with the cancer treatments [that follow], you’ll continue to pay.”

Yolanda asked: “Where am I going to get that kind of money?  I don’t make that kind of money.  I don’t have that kind of money.  The doctor said, you might want to consider putting him down.  And I said, putting him down is not an option.”

She asked for a few minutes with family members, who were at the hospital “to figure this out.”  But the doctor told her, she said, that “we need a decision within the next few minutes.”  She felt pressured.

Yolanda began to sign the paperwork that would permit the hospital to euthanize her pet.  “But I just couldn’t go through with it,” she said.  Irene offered to lend her $4,000, the sum the hospital wanted before the surgery would be performed. After the credit card transaction, Trojan was taken into surgery.

Following the operation, Yolanda was told that the mass was not malignant and that her dog had suffered a ruptured spleen. Today, Trojan is a happy, healthy dog and Yolanda is “almost done paying the money, little by little, that I borrowed from my sister and from my bank.”

When she asked the specialty hospital about finding help for the surgery bill, they mentioned Angel Fund.  Yolanda called the fund and was impressed with how she was received.  “Angel Fund was very good to me,” she said.  “There was no waiting period and the lady I talked to was very nice and very polite.  She was great.”  She was granted $500.  After a call from Dr. Malo, she said, the specialty hospital reduced her bill by 10 percent, more than $800.  She also received a grant from another charitable group.

Yolanda did not see her relationship with the specialty hospital as one of trust.  “I didn’t feel that they were communicating with me,” she said.  The day after she took Trojan home, she took him back to see Dr. Malo.

She is a single mother who has raised two sons, 19-year-old Edward and Michael, 18, without help from their father.  Both still live at home.  She works for Advance America, a short-term loan company.

Listen as the AHF Board of Trustees President, Dr. Mark Malo (owner of Garden Grove Dog and Cat Hospital).

It speaks about the fnancial grants we are providing to help the pets of the homeless in Orange County with mobile clinics once a month.  These clinics provide vaccines, flea and tick treatments, ear infection treatments, and other minor treatments.

Listen and learn a bit more about what your donations support!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

The following vaccine protocol is offered for those dogs where minimal vaccinations are advisable or desirable. The schedule is one I recommend and should not be interpreted to mean that other protocols recommended by a veterinarian would be less satisfactory. It’s a matter of professional judgment and choice.

9 – 10 weeks of age
Distemper + Parvovirus, MLV
e.g. Merck Nobivac (Intervet Progard) Puppy DPV

14 – 15 weeks of age
Distemper + Parvovirus, MLV

18 weeks of age
Parvovirus only, MLV
Note: New research states that last puppy parvovirus vaccine should be at 18 weeks old.

20 weeks or older, if allowable by law
Rabies – give 3-4 weeks apart from other vaccines
Mercury-free (thimerosol-free, TF)

1 year old
Distemper + Parvovirus, MLV
This is an optional booster or titer. If the client intends not to booster after this optional booster or intends to retest titers in another three years, this optional booster at puberty is wise.

1 year old
Rabies – give 3-4 weeks apart from other vaccines
3-year product if allowable by law; mercury-free (TF)

Perform vaccine antibody titers for distemper and parvovirus every three years thereafter, or more often, if desired. Vaccinate for rabies virus according to the law, except where circumstances indicate that a written waiver needs to be obtained from the primary care veterinarian. In that case, a rabies antibody titer can also be performed to accompany the waiver request. Visit The Rabies Challenge Fund for more information.

W. Jean Dodds, DVM
Hemopet / NutriScan
11561 Salinaz Avenue
Garden Grove, CA 92843

2013-2016 FELINE VACCINATION PROTOCOL – W. JEAN DODDS, DVM

Approximately seven years ago, the American Association of Feline Practitioners(AAFP) sponsored and conducted a groundbreaking study on feline vaccines. The panel – which included Dr. Dodds’ colleague, Dr. Ron Schultz – divided the vaccines into core and non-core. Just this year, the AAFP published updated feline vaccination guidelines. Dr. Dodds agrees with the panel’s findings, with the exception of giving feline leukemia vaccine to kittens that will be kept strictly indoors. She also prefers a more minimal and delayed vaccination schedule to offset potential adverse vaccine reactions and feline vaccine injection site-associated sarcomas. Additionally, Dr. Dodds considers factors such as presence of maternal immunity, prevalence of viruses or other infectious agents in the region, number of reported occurrences of the viruses and other infectious agents, how these agents are spread, and the typical environmental conditions and exposure risk activities of companion animals.

2013-2016 Feline Vaccination Protocol
Note: The following vaccine protocol is offered for those cats where minimal vaccinations are advisable or desirable. The schedule is one Dr. Dodds recommends and should not interpreted to mean that other protocols recommended by a veterinarian would be less satisfactory. It’s a matter of professional judgment and choice.

8-9 Weeks Old:
Panleukopenia (feline parvovirus), Calicivirus, Rhinopneumonitits Virus (feline herpesvirus-1)
(FVRCP)

12-13 Weeks Old:
Same as above

24 Weeks or Older (if required by law):
Rabies (e.g. Merial Purevax™, recombinant)

1 Year:
FVRCP booster (optional = titer)

1+ Year:
Rabies, same as above but separated by 2-3 weeks from FVRCP

Perform vaccine antibody titers for panleukopenia virus every three years thereafter, or more often, if desired. Vaccinate for rabies virus according to the law, except where circumstances indicate that a written waiver needs to be obtained from the primary care veterinarian.  In that case, a rabies antibody titer can also be performed to accompany the waiver request. Visit Rabies Challenge Fund.

W. Jean Dodds, DVM
Hemopet / NutriScan
11561 Salinaz Avenue
Garden Grove, CA 92843

By Dr. Jean Dodds at Hemopet in Garden Grove, CA

Depending on where you live, many businesses are now increasingly pet-friendly such as clothing stores, hotels, pet supply stores, photography studios, etc. For people who use and need service dogs for medical purposes or assistance, this can be a blessing and sometimes a problem. Compounding the problem is the definition of what is considered to be a service animal.

According to the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) website, “A service animal is defined as a dog that has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability. The task(s) performed by the dog must be directly related to the person’s disability.” [The new ADA regulations also contain a specific provision which covers miniature horses.]

Under the ADA, service dogs allow people with medical conditions or disabilities to function and participate in society such as going to movie theatres, the grocery store, work, restaurants, etc. A service dog may pull a wheelchair. Another example is that a service dog can help a person with epilepsy by detecting and then keeping the person safe during a seizure. Of course, many of us frequently see guide dogs for people with visual impairments.

Businesses and other entities do have rights that protect them if a particular service animal behaves in a way that poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others or is not under the control of the handler.

Additionally, businesses can ask two specific questions about service animals – that do not violate or interfere with the civil rights of people with disabilities – and are then protected from litigation. The ADA website states:

1. Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?
2. What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?

Staff are not allowed to request any documentation for the dog’s training, require that the dog demonstrate his/her task, or inquire about the nature of the person’s disability.

Some states have regulations to protect people with disabilities that do not infringe on their civil rights. Colorado passed a law last year that imposes fines on people who misrepresent ordinary dogs as those specifically trained for the purpose of assisting someone with disabilities. California takes the law further. Service dogs must be registered with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which provides standardized identification tags. Anyone in California who falsely claims an animal to be a service animal can be charged with a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for six months or a fine up to $1000 or both.

Fair Housing Act

Depending on the title within the ADA law, ADA is overseen by the Department of Justice (DOJ) or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) – which is managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – defines assistance animals, “An assistance animal is nota pet. It is an animal that works, provides assistance, or performs tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, or provides emotional support that alleviates one or more identified symptoms or effects of a person’s disability.” The FHA states, “Persons with disabilities may request a reasonable accommodation for any assistance animal, including an emotional support animal.”

So, FHA is more all-encompassing to ensure fair housing for everyone. It covers people with disabilities who need a service dog to perform tasks and people who need animals (any type) for emotional support. It overrides “no pets policies” by landlords.

FHA provisions are also built in in case the animal may be considered a danger to others or property. Property owners – if the disability is not apparent – can ask for documentation from a physician, psychiatrist, social worker, or other mental health professional that the animal provides emotional support that alleviates one or more of the identified symptoms or effects of an existing disability. The law does protect civil rights because landlords cannot ask for medical records or the nature of the disability.

Psychiatric Service Dogs

Before we move on, we wanted to touch upon Psychiatric Service Dogs (PSD), as approximately 15 states have statutory definitions of either disability or service dogs that are intentionally worded to exclude PSDs. If a person with a disability and a fully trained PSD qualifies under the ADA, they would still have regular protections under the ADA, but no additional ones provided by the state. These dogs are performing a specific task, such as:

• Providing safety checks for, or calming, individuals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
• Sensing an anxiety attack and taking a specific action to help avoid the attack or lessen its impact.
• Reminding a person with mental illness to take medications.
• Preventing or interrupting impulsive or destructive behaviors, such as self-mutilation.

It is certainly sad that psychiatric disorders are considered “murky” or go unrecognized in this day and age.

Air Carrier Access Act

The Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) was enacted to protect the civil rights and health of people with disabilities who use service animals, people with Emotional Support Animals (ESAs), and people with PSDs to be able to bring the animal into the cabin. This law falls under the aegis of the Department of Transportation.

For service animals, airlines can do the following:

• Request the credible verbal assurances of a qualified individual with a disability using the animal.

• Look for physical indicators such as the presence of a harness or tags.

• Observe the behavior of the animal.

For ESA and PSD, airlines can request specific documentation and/or 48-hours advance notice that cannot be older than one year. It must state a mental or emotional disability that is recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and a need for an ESA or PSD for air travel or at a destination. It must be written by a licensed mental health professional who provides care to the person, dated, with type of professional, and jurisdiction or state in which the license was issued.

Airlines are never required to accept snakes, reptiles, ferrets, rodents, and spiders. Additionally, they can refuse an animal if it is not properly behaved. However, an animal cannot be refused if it just makes the crew or other passengers uncomfortable.

Conclusion

Some people sadly take advantage of the ADA, FHA and ACAA.

Regarding ADA, three loopholes appear to exist in the federal law:

1. The ADA does not require that service animals be certified or licensed. Certification could be considered a barrier to entry and therefore discriminatory.
2. A service dog does not have to be professionally trained, but can be personally trained. A professional training requirement may be considered a barrier to entry.
3. Some state and local laws define service animal more broadly than the ADA.
4. We have to remember that “trained for a specific task” is not the same as well-behaved – and this is where the ADA standards can fall apart.

As noted above, businesses have certain rights. However, businesses are reluctant to deny access to misbehaving service animals or ask if the animal is a service dog because they may pose their questions poorly. Then, they could be prosecuted for violating civil rights. People with disabilities who use well-behaved and trained service dogs are becoming rightfully angry and upset when people are taking advantage of the law.

In addition to the life-saving, emotional and functioning assistance service dogs provide, we need to remember the cost and number of years it took to get the dog to be specially trained. For instance, the full cost to breed, raise and train a service dog to help a child within the autism spectrum can be over $20,000. A guide dog for a person with a visual impairment is around $50,000.

Today, people with well-behaved and trained service dogs are pointing to people with ESAs or PSDs for making life more difficult for them outside of the home and on public transport and planes. In fact, the Advocates’ Service Animal Proposal wants to limit the rights of people with ESAs on planes. But, it is not a problem created by responsible people with legitimate ESAs or PSDs. It is only people who take advantage of the laws, as they are harming the civil rights and protections others desperately need.

W. Jean Dodds, DVM
Hemopet / NutriScan
11561 Salinaz Avenue
Garden Grove, CA 92843

References

“Advocates’ Service Animal Proposal.” (n.d.): n. pag. United States Department of Transportation, 21 July 2016. Web. 18 June 2017. https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/P4.SA%20Advocates%20Proposal%20072116.pdf.

“Air Travel with Service Animals.” (n.d.): 189-92. United States Department of Transportation. Web. 18 June 2017. https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/AirTravel_with_ServiceAnimals-TriFold.pdf.

“Frequently Asked Questions about Service Animals and the ADA.” United States Department of Justice, 20 Jan. 2015. Web. 18 June 2017. https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/service_animal_qa.html.

“Service Animals and Assistance Animals for People with Disabilities in Housing and HUD-Funded Programs.” (n.d.): n. pag. United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 25 Apr. 2013. Web. 18 June 2017. https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=servanimals_ntcfheo2013-01.pdf.

“Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals.” ADA National Network, 27 June 2017. Web. 18 June 2017. https://adata.org/publication/service-animals-booklet.

“States Specifically excluding PSDs from State Definition of Service Dog.” Service Dog Central, n.d. Web. 18 June 2017. https://www.servicedogcentral.org/content/node/464.