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The Cat Care Clinic helped the Sanchez’ cat Smokey by applying for a receiving an Angel Fund Grant to help with the cost of Smokey’s care treatment. Thank you Cat Care Clinic!

Veterinarians work hard every day to help people and their pets in their communities.  The AHF — through the Angel Fund — is happy to help.

Dr. Coward of the Animal and Bird Clinic of Mission Viejo recently reached out to the Angel Fund for the Jackson family’s dog Cody.

Dr. Coward wrote us a nice letter of thanks for our help and we wanted to share it with you.

The AHF is pleased we could be of assistance to Dr Coward and  the Jackson’s.  Thank you Dr Coward for your kind words.

FROM THE AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION…

Thanks to you, some of America’s bravest heroes — our military dogs — have come back to a hero’s welcome and a safe, loving home following a lifetime of service to their country.

With your help we’ve been able to bring home seven of these courageous canines in just the past four months and reunite them with their heroic handlers:

In fact, each trained military dog saves the lives of an estimated 150-200 U.S. service men and women, and they deserve not only our respect but a good, safe retirement on U.S. soil.

But not every one of our four-footed veterans is so lucky. For a variety of reasons, some don’t get home to enjoy the happy, healthy lives they have so richly earned.

To change this and urge America and its leaders to bring home ALL our veterans — including those on four legs — please join us and three of the military hero dog teams you helped reunite on Capitol Hill tomorrow at 2:30 pm in the Cannon Building, Room 210, for an afternoon you won’t soon forget. We promise you will walk away with a new-found appreciation for the brave sacrifices made by the two- and four-legged warriors.

With gratitude,

Robin R. Ganzert, PhD
President and CEO

The Animal Health Foundation Board of Trustees thanks Cynde Carlton and Shakai for years of bringing smiles to those in need.  Shakai has been retired and will be taking a well-deserved rest at home!

Whitney

Breed:  All American Mix

Birthday:  June 22, 2007

Handler:  Katy

Whitney is the ultimate sweetheart and quite the Mama’s girl.  When first adopted in 2009, Whitney was shy and hesitant to make new friends.  She’s grown-up a lot since then and has now become a very friendly, little pup.

Whitney loves taking walks, learning new tricks, and with her perky ears, she is always on alert.  She loves going to the park on Saturday for play dates with her doggie friends.  Whitney lives with handler, Katy, sister, Lilah, and cat friend, Bro.

Delilah

Breed:  Cocker Spaniel Mix

Birthday:  May 26, 2011

Handler:  Katy

Delilah loves everyone she meets.  Her nickname is “Wiggle Butt”, because she is so excited to greet people, she can’t stop wiggling her bottom.

Delilah, or Lilah, was adopted from Camp Cocker Rescue in 2013 and quickly passed her Good Manners classes and Canine Good Citizen.  She loves hanging out in the park with her doggie friends on Saturday.  Lilah lives with handler, Katy, big sister, Whitney, and cat friend, Bro.

Board Member and Manager of the AHF Caring Creatures’ Pet Partner program – Jan Vincent – will be speaking on how alternative therapies such as Pet Therapy can foser physical, social and emotional wellbeing at a Continuing Education Meeting for medical professionals.

The meeting will be held at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills.

Boss

Early in January last year, Natalie Valle was concerned about Boss, her year-old Chihuahua.  “He was in a lot of discomfort.  He was hunched over.  And he was peeing out little specs of blood. And every time I would touch him, he would scream.”

So she and her then husband picked Boss up and took him to Mesa West Pet Hospital in Costa Mesa.  “The doctor (Lethicia Lepera) said that he had a bladder stone. It was a big-sized bladder stone – maybe two stones together.”

Dr. Lepera told Natalie that Boss needed surgery. But, Natalie said, “I didn’t have the money for it.” She was a student at Orange Coast College at the time and was not working. Her husband was working but did not make much money. Dr. Lepera gave Natalie a list of organizations that might be willing to help. One of them was Angel Fund.

Both the hospital and Angel Fund contributed $500 for the surgery.  Boss stayed at the hospital overnight and had the surgery the next morning.  And Natalie is grateful to both the hospital and Angel Fund.

“She [Dr. Lepera] was so helpful.  She fell in love with Boss and she did everything that she could to save his life. Her heart went out to him. The hospital was so good to us. There were beyond good to us. Boss was in really bad shape. It would break your heart. The stone was like half the size of a golf ball.  He was only about six pounds at the time.”

Now, a year and a half later, Boss weighs 10 pounds.  “He’s full of life. He’s a totally different dog. He’s like a little kid. He wants to get into everything. His mi His mind is always going,” Natalie said. “He’s so crazy but I love him to death.”

Today, Natalie is single and works as a customer service representative in Costa Mesa. eH When she is not on the job, she and Boss are constant companions.  And, as a reminder of what happened in January, 2013, she keeps that bladder stone in a plastic container.

About three years ago, Sherrill Cook adopted a Saint Bernard.  Her four sons welcomed Teddy to the family – but he was Sherrill’s dog.  She is largely confined to a wheelchair and he is a service animal.

“He pulls my wheelchair. If I am standing and start to fall, he will push me up against something and brace me all on his own. Teddy is tuned in to my heart rate and talks to me when it gets up to 120.”  How does he do that?  “I don’t know.  I had an asthma attack once and they couldn’t get my heart rate under control. It was sky-rocketing and they sent me home anyway.  Teddy just sat there and talked to me.” Can he see a physical change? “I think he can sense it.  He’s really in tune with me. He knows when something is off.  He is alert to an anxiety attack.  And he wears a harness that I can use for balance.

In January, 2013, Sherrill and her husband, Jeremy, took Teddy to a dog park near their Thousand Oaks home “so he could relax and be a dog.  He was running around and he went down and blew out his knee.”

The Cooks took Teddy to Tustin Santa Ana Veterinary Hospital, not far from the agency where they had adopted him.  Laura Weatherford, DVM, performed surgery for a partial tear in Teddy’s Anterior Cruciate Ligament.  “She is really great,” Sherrill said. “She works with you and she explains everything really well.”

Jeremy Cook is a computer engineer.  But the family was “living paycheck to paycheck and we were really short of money at the time of the surgery, Sherrill said.  The Cooks applied for help from Angel Fund. “It worked really well. We’ve just been really blessed,” she said. Angel Fund contributed $500 to Teddy’s bill and so did the hospital.

Teddy was in the hospital four days and then had to be confined to a kennel at the Cooks’ home for eight weeks. Then he resumed his duties as Sherrill chief companion and helpmate.

But Teddy, who just turned four, “blew out his other knee chasing a cat in the backyard” and needs surgery again.  This time, Sherrill said, she will pay for the operation with funds from an inheritance she is getting from her late father.  She will get around, in the meantime, with help from her husband and sons.

One day in December, 2013, an elderly woman brought her Chihuahua, Hershey into Laguna Hills Animal Hospital.  She tearfully told veterinary assistant Taryn Collins that she wanted to put the dog down.

“She didn’t think the medications that had been prescribed for him were giving him any relief from the allergies and anxiety we thought he had,” Taryn said. “ She felt that he was irritable at night and not able to sleep.  She was hysterical and said that he should be euthanized right now.  She thought that there was nothing else that she could do and she didn’t have a lot of funds. But she really loved her pet.

“I was the first one [at the hospital] to have contact with her and escorted her into the examination room so it was definitely personal for me. I decided that I was going to fight the idea of euthanizing. So I offered the suggestion that we take the pet,” she said.

“It turned out that Hershey had patella luxation – that’s where the kneecap can slip out of place – in both knees and he needed surgery. So he was licking and constantly going to his knees because they were painful, not because they were itching.”

The woman signed papers transferring Hershey to Taryn. “At the time, I didn’t know I was going to raise money to get him the surgery.  I just thought I would take him in and see what I could do for him. The woman was really grateful. She thought it was better than euthanizing him. I don’t think that in her heart she wanted him to die. She just couldn’t take care of him any more.”

Taryn set out to raise money for the surgery.  Clients of the hospital contributed $200 after they heard the story.  She contacted mobile surgeon Paul Cechner through Dr. Bernadine Cruz and “asked if he would do us a big favor. It was the holiday season and he did what is normally a $3,500 operation, I think, for $1,000.” Angel Fund contributed $500 and the hospital added more than $600. After the surgery, Taryn took Hershey home with her to recover.

She had good friends who had recently lost a Chihuahua because of heart issues and she asked them if they would like to take Hershey. “They’re like a second family to me. So when this little brown Chihuahua came in and the lady wanted to euthanize him, what is the irony that this family had just gotten their pet taken away from them? So I wanted to fix him up and get him ready to be fostered.”

And, after six rewarding years at Laguna Hills Hospital, Taryn was allergic to cats. “I wanted to learn everything and do everything and work with animals. But I just can’t work with cats. So I planned to drive to Pennsylvania to a new job in a physician’s office.

“Hershey was with me for the first month and then I left him with my friends and drove across the country.  And I got texts from them all the time telling me about him. They’re a big family and the dog is just loved, [although] he was shy at first. I’ve been told that I saved his life.  It’s def

And Taryn, too, is happy.  She is now helping people instead of animals and enjoying her new job.