Posts in Category: AHF Grant Recipients

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.

Late one Monday afternoon in December, 2016, Scott Rosenthal and his wife Christina, patted their dog Cody and left their Lancaster home for a Bible study class at their church in Woodland Hills.

When they returned later that evening, Cody “came walking up to me,” Scott said, “but she couldn’t put any weight on her right front foot.  It was just flopping around and I was like, ‘Oh oh!’”

Cody loved to chase rabbits but it didn’t look like she had gotten out of the Rosenthal’s 1.6-acre yard.  Scott thought she may have stepped in a gopher hole.  The dog is a beautiful Labrador mix and she was in a lot of pain.   “She laid down and I couldn’t get her up,” Scott said.  “She’s not that big, about 50 pounds.  I had to get a blanket and roll her onto it to move her.”

Scott called Dr. Wendy Brooks, who owns Mar Vista Animal Medical Center.  She is an old family friend and Scott has always taken his animals to her – even though it is more than an hour’s drive away.  Because of his work schedule, he was unable to take Cody to the hospital the next day.  “Once I got her there, they made her comfortable and they [examined her] and decided what they needed to do,” he said.

Dr. Brooks determined that Cody needed a titanium bone plate for her fractured radius.  Scott, who works as a mechanic on the vehicle fleet at Oaks Christian Camp and Conference Center, “was a little low on cash” at the time, he said, and he was fearful that he might have to put Cody down.

But he called Care Credit and obtained a loan.  And the staff at the hospital suggested applying to Angel Fund.  He did and was granted $500, a sum matched by the hospital, which also provided $350 from client donations.

The surgery cost $1,800 but the hospital boarded Cody for about three months.  Scott’s total cost, he said, was $440. “There was care at the hospital and some of that was donated,” he said. “And I worked on one of their vehicles and that was bartered.”

And, he said, his neighbors, Don and Paul Eaton – Don was a special friend of Cody – gave him $350 to help pay the dog’s medical bills.  “He put the money in my hand and he said, ‘We’ll put it toward that.’  And I was like, ‘You’re kidding me!’ He’s a brother in Christ and he realized there was a need,” Scott said.   “It all worked out.  It was an amazing blessing.”  He and Christina are grateful to Angel Fund, the hospital and the Eaton brothers.  “There’s God all over this thing,” Scott said.

Today, Cody is doing well at 11 years of age.  For the first six months after her surgery, Dr. Brooks was concerned “because the operation didn’t quite take,” Scott said, and because of the possibility of infection.  But those concerns now are long gone.

“Cody has settled down a little bit and is not so active as she once was,” he said.  “The leg isn’t as strong as it was but she uses it just fine.  She wants to jump around like a puppy so we have to keep an eye on her.”

In late October Laura Pierson’s bulldog, Baby, had a puffy ear.  So she took the dog to see her veterinarian, Dr. Wendy Brooks at Mar Vista Animal Medical Clinic.  “I thought the ear might be infected but it was just a blood clot from shaking her head,” Laura said.  “However, the doctor noticed a tumor on her abdomen.”

Laura, whose primary income is a Social Security disability check, did not have the resources to pay for surgery to remove the tumor.  Dr. Brooks told her about Angel Fund.   She applied and received a grant of $314.50, which was matched by the hospital and the surgery was scheduled.

When the procedure was performed, Dr. Brooks removed the growth she had originally found and a second tumor.   A biopsy revealed that the masses were cancerous. The disease had spread to Baby’s lymph glands.  The doctor told Laura that Baby was not likely to live much longer than six months but that chemotherapy could extend her life to a year.

That was not something Laura thought she could do.  “I opted not to do chemotherapy.  I couldn’t afford it and I don’t want to inject her with any chemicals.  But I definitely am going to keep on top of the progression [of the disease].

“I am in the process of changing her diet,” Laura said, and is hopeful that will help Baby live longer.  She has spent considerable time researching recommended diets for dogs with cancer.

“It’s uncharted territory for me,” she said.  Dr. Brooks, who has been Baby’s veterinarian all her 12 years, “is very respectful of what I feel like I can do and what I can afford to do.  She is my go-to expert.”

Laura’s reading indicated that she should not feed Baby raw foods and that cooked meat and vegetables with some supplements could be beneficial. “I’ve been trying to get her closer to higher protein, higher fat and less carbs in her diet with none of the additives like corn and rice.

“If nothing else, I’ll be adding to the quality of her life,” she said.  “She’s my girl.  She’s my child. And she’s doing really well, actually.  She’s such a youthful dog.  You’d never know that she’s 12 years old.”

Laura, who lives alone in a Venice apartment, adopted Baby as a puppy.  About the same time, she adopted Whiskers, a Schnauzer mix.  “I’ve raised them like a family,” she said. Whiskers, also female, is a happy dog who is makings Baby’s life better, Laura believes.

Laura was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2007, shortly before she adopted her two companions.  “They are my emotional support,” she said.  In recent years, she has worked part time as a personal assistant and a curator for a photographer.  She was working on a Ph.D. when she was diagnosed.

She finds living in Los Angeles challenging and has decided that she will return to Parkersburg, W. Va., to be near her family.  Her father suffers from Parkinson’s disease.  She plans to make the trip in her car with Baby and Whiskers.

Laura is grateful to Angel Fund – and to Dr. Brooks – for making Baby’s surgery possible. After the surgery, a member of the hospital staff “told me that Baby woke up from anesthesia wagging her tail, wiggling her bottom,” she said.

“I thought that was a wonderful thank you to the doctor.  I got really excited when I heard that.”

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.

In October, 2018, Marta Kepes was out with her three dogs.  Ralph, a 14-year-old terrier mix, was coupled with one of the other dogs on a leash.   “Nothing unusual was happening and suddenly he let out a sharp yelp,” she said.  “His left rear leg was all twisted and he was in agony.  I’ve never seen any of my animals like that before.”

It was in the evening and she took Ralph immediately to Center Sinai Animal Hospital in West Los Angeles.  The doctor told her that Ralph’s hip had come out of its socket.  The doctor said the hip could be put back in the socket but it appeared that the ligaments were torn and that might necessitate surgery.  A surgeon, who could do the operation, was coming the next morning, the doctor said.

Marta, who lives on a monthly SSI disability check, told the doctor about her financial situation.  “It is pretty grim,” she said in the interview. “I had three elderly dogs.  Ralph was the youngest.  So this was like, oh my god!  The prices of everything have skyrocketed in the last decade.  But I said, ‘Yes, of course,’ to the surgery.“

She said that Center Sinai had permitted her to carry a balance on bills for her animals, between $100 and $200, on which she made monthly payments, with the understanding that she would have to pay off the debt before incurring new expenses.  “I made it very clear that I would have to continue the same system with them to pay for the surgery,” she said. “The person who checked me out said that would be no problem.”

She brought Ralph back the next morning and met the surgeon, who told her she was very glad that she had brought Ralph in.  Marta picked up the dog later in the day.

She got a call after a day or two from the hospital and was asked how she planned to pay for the surgery.  She answered, she said: “I don’t have any other way to pay than the way I’ve been doing it.”

When she brought Ralph back for a checkup, the surgeon was there and berated Marta, she said, telling her that she would not have done the surgery if she had known that Marta could not pay for it on the day of the procedure.

But the person who manages accounts at the hospital told her not to worry about what had happened and asked if she would be willing to apply for a grant.  “‘Of course,” Marta replied.  Soon she was approved for a $1,000 grant from Angel Fund. The grant was matched by Center Sinai.

Marta was grateful for the help.  But about two months after the surgery.  Ralph started going downhill.  “I don’t think it was because of his leg,” Marta said.  But it was clear that he was near the end of his life, she said. She did not take him to a veterinarian because of the bills she owed.  She found a euthanasia service that would come to her home and put the animal down if she made a down payment.

Recently, she called the euthanasia service to come again to put down one of her other dogs.  Today, her household includes two cats and one dog, Stella, a dachshund who is partly blind.

“All of this is really tense for me,” she said through tears.  “Stella is really lonely now.”

When “things get calmer,” Marta said, she will “maybe proctor an older dog from a rescue group that would pay the medical bills.  That I can do.”

Marta said that she had lived on her own all her adult life.  She is 67 and once held a job.  But she has had back issues, including surgery, and has been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.  A few years ago, she lived in her car with her three dogs and three cats for about three years.

After she receives her SSI check each month, she goes to the store to buy supplies for herself and her animals and she sometimes will put some gasoline in her van – “a gas guzzler,” she said.  She does not drive often because of the high cost of gasoline.

Sandra Schuelke is a person who cares about animals and the place where she lives.

She and her sister Sherry spearheaded an effort a few years ago to capture and neuter a growing population of feral cats in the gated, single-family condo development where they live in El Monte.

The project did not have the full support of everyone in the homeowners association.

“It took some time to get some of the neighbors on board,” Sandra said.  “They didn’t understand the program at first.  They thought that trapping them and removing them was the answer.  But research shows that you need a stable control group and every time you remove animals there is a vacuum effect and more will come in from the outside.  The stable colony keeps outsiders out.”

Since the effort began, she said, “we have trapped, neutered and released 45 adult cats.  We have been doing this for five years.  We have rescued 47 kittens and all of them have been put up for adoption through three different rescue operations.  I walk through the complex every day and keep an eye on ‘em and make sure there are no new ones.  That’s my daily volunteer work.  All the cats have been fixed.

“We’ve gone through two kitten seasons with no new litters and we’re coming up on our third.”

The colony does not cause any problems in the housing complex and is not especially visible, she said.   “The cats all have their places.  We have 142 homes in our complex so it’s about one cat for every three houses.”

A bit more than a year ago, however, that tranquility was broken.   One of the feral cats was missing and a neighbor reported that she was hearing the animal’s cries constantly from somewhere behind her house near the home of another community member.

“We searched high and low, in bushes, in peoples’ attics and garages, underneath patios – everywhere,” Sandra said.  “We didn’t find her but we kept hearing her voice from different places.”  The James family was particularly helpful in the search, she said.

“At one point I called the fire department because we thought the cat was in one of the homes.  The people in the house got really upset and wouldn’t let the firemen come into their house.”

A few weeks later, an electrician went into the attic of the house.

“He told the community handyman later that he had seen a cat there.  So I went back to the house and begged them to let me put a trap in the attic.  They let me do it.  But there was no need for a trap.  I was able to grab her.  We immediately took her to Community Companion Animal Hospital in Temple City.  She was severely dehydrated and weighed just 2.9 pounds. Her body temperature was 91 degrees. She was probably just hours from death.”

The cat – The James Family named her Delilah – had been trapped in the attic for about five weeks without food or water.  Sandra believes Delilah may have been frightened by painters and went down a ventilation pipe from the roof and fell into the attic.

The hospital immediately put Delilah on IV fluids and antibiotics and started feeding her with a syringe. She was in the hospital two weeks before she was released.

Sandra expressed her appreciation for the efforts of Dr. Joseph Pavlik, Dr. Joni Nasser, Dr. Neil Bodie and the hospital staff: “They were compassionate and they never gave up on her.  All the help from the hospital and Angel Fund was just wonderful.  I couldn’t have done it without everybody coming together.” Angel Fund contributed $250 to Delilah’s care and so did the hospital.  Sandra paid the remainder of the bill.

Today Delilah has not forgotten her feral roots.  The cat lives in an enclosure in Sandra’s bedroom.  “You usually would see it outdoors, not inside.  But it has two levels.  When I go in for cleaning, she goes into her little hideaway.  She can go there when she doesn’t want to be bothered.  When she wasn’t feeling well, I could pet her but not so much now.”

Sandra has two other cats but they do not have physical contact with Delilah.  “They are face to face with her, through the wire so they are getting familiar with one another.  I’d love it if she were friendly.  But she is who she is and I’m happy that she’s alive.

“I’m sure she is still traumatized from being stuck in that attic for so long and being in the hospital,” Sandra said.  She is hopeful that over time Delilah will become more friendly with her and her other cats and be fully integrated into the household.

Sandra – who works in health care administration in Pasadena – lives with her daughter, Rachel, who will be going to college in the fall, and her mother, Linda.

Early one cold January morning last year, Martiniano Gutierrez, was walking his Chihuahua Goofy in a park in Santa Ana.  Suddenly, a black German Shepherd mix charged out of the predawn darkness and attacked the smaller dog.

Martiniano did not see the shepherd until it was too late.  He managed to pull the dog off Goofy – but not before it had inflicted serious wounds on the smaller dog’s chest and abdomen and he himself had been bitten.

A 68-year-old man from Puebla, Mex., Martiniano had been living in his car for a year and a half and was not working.  Goofy means everything to him.  “He is my only family. He is my son. He is the other half of my soul,” Martiniano told Ligia Veloz, staff members at Tustin Santa Ana Veterinary Hospital where he took his dog for treatment.  “Even though he was in pain from the attack, he still gave me kisses. Goofy may depend on me for nourishment but my soul depends on him.”

Goofy was calm, even though he was bleeding from his severe wounds.  “He’s such a good boy,” Ligia, a receptionist and technical assistant at the hospital said.  “That’s why we all fell in love with him.“  Dr. Laura Weatherford repaired Goofy surgically and the dog was released to Martiniano that evening.  “We knew he would do better with his dad,” Ligia said. “We saw him the next day and when he came in to be checked over several weeks.”

Martiniano did not have money to pay the bill.  The hospital steered him to Angel Fund, which provided $500, a sum matched by the hospital.  Those funds made the surgery and treatment possible and Goofy and his owner are grateful both to the hospital and Angel Fund.

The Mexican native has lived in the United States for 37 years and is now a U.S. citizen.  He worked for years as a tire man in a garage owned by his brother. But the brother died a few years ago.  Martiniano worked in the same garage for his nephew – but his pay was cut back and he had to live in the tire shop. He sought work elsewhere but was unable to find another job because of his age and the fact that he has difficulty walking and standing for long periods of time.

Today he lives on a Social Security disability check.  But he no longer is living in his car.  He now owns an RV, purchased a year ago through a state program that friends told him about.  It provides much more room and he and Goofy are more comfortable in it.

Martiniano recognized the dog that attacked Goofy.  He had stayed overnight near the Santa Ana park frequently and knew the house where the shepherd lived.  So he went there after his dog was injured and told the owners what had happened.  They refused to help and seemed to blame the event on Goofy and his master.

Ligia acted as interpreter in an interview with Martiniano, who speaks little English.  She said that her hospital helps him as much as possible.  “We have clients who donate bed and food and we always contact him because we know that he appreciates it.  And we love Goofy.”

Martiniano and Goofy plan to continue living in the RV because of money issues.  But there is not enough income to pay for a space in an RV park so they will continue to park on the street at night.

But they are happy together.  And Goofy is “really good,” Ligia said.  “He’s always got his tail wagging.  And he’s always looking for his dad.  He’s just a happy guy.”

SCVMA member Monarch Veterinary Hospital in Laguna Niguel, CA received a grant for the Angel Fund to help the Frost family afford needed veterinary care for their cat Angel.  Thank you Monarch Veterinary Hospital!

Baby Kitty – a beautiful Siamese cat – had “a few issues with eating and tummy problems” in 2016, owner Cherry Simkins recalled in an interview.  “I didn’t worry about it that much.”

But the two-year-old feline’s condition worsened.  And one day, Cherry could not find him, despite a long search of all his favorite haunts in the yard of her Torrance home.  By this time Baby Kitty had stopped eating entirely, she said, and she was worried.  Her veterinarian, Dr. Alice Villalobos of Pawspice and Animal Oncology in Hermosa Beach,  suggested that she search places “where you know he couldn’t be – every crack and crevice.” And she found him in a stack of wood that he had crawled inside.

“He realized that he couldn’t eat and he had crawled in there and decided that he would die there,” she said. “He was turning into a skeleton and his food was not being processed by his body.”

She took Baby Kitty to Dr. Edward M. Leeds at Surgical Group for Animals in Torrance, referred by Dr. Villalobos, who had diagnosed the cat with a diaphragmatic hernia.  Cherry thinks that the condition may have been the consequence of a fall.  Many of his abdominal organs had crowded into his chest cavity, impinging on his lungs and heart and threatening his life.

The Surgical Group performed corrective surgery and guided Cherry to Angel Fund, which provided a grant of $500.  The hospital contributed $1,938.  “It wasn’t something I could take care of,“ Cherry said. “I had had some really hard times financially.”

She was told that the likelihood was that her cat would not survive. But she said, “everyone was pulling for Baby Kitty. There was no doubt in my mind that he would pull through.”  He did.  And now, she said, “he is a much sweeter cat.  He’s the most loving cat.  It really shows how thankful he was that he was saved.  He’s really touched a lot of hearts and that makes him all the more special.”

Baby Kitty’s recovery was not without its problems.  He and his brother Poofa are outdoor cats and they want to keep it that way, Cherry said.  He hated being in a cage where he needed to be confined for a month, she said.  “He just went crazy.  It meant I couldn’t work like a needed to.  He needed a lot of love and care. I had to hold him and calm him and keep him settled because he wanted out.  Even wearing a cone, he figured out how to get out of that cage. He was able to lift the edge of it and slide out – and it was a heavy cage.  He flattened his body like a rat.  He didn’t want to be in there.”

Today, life is back to normal for Cherry and her two cats.  “They’re pretty spoiled,” she said.  “They have lots of places to go, here and at the neighbors, I’m sure.  They share a big lot with possums, raccoons, rats and the occasional coyote.

She doesn’t see coyotes as a problem for Baby Kitty and Poofa, who previously lost a leg to surgery.  “I have amazing crows here who love the cats. After the surgery, a coyote came to eat cats on my property. Believe it or not, the crows went insane.

“All of them descended on this area and I came out [wondering] what is all this ruckus? And they were telling me that the coyote was there, glaring at Baby Kitty and Baby Kitty was glaring back. I shooed the coyote off.  It happened one other time. And I came out and sure enough there was a coyote here again.  So the crows take care of the kitties and the kitties catch rats for them.”

She said that her cats are the welcoming committee for her clients who visit the office she built outside her house.  And, she said, “Babby Kitty loves to make me laugh.  He’s a funny creature and he has personality.  He loves to play tag.  He wants you to pet him and if you try to step away, he’ll reach around – without claws – and whack you, like you’ve got to pet him some more.  It’s a game.”

Her experience with Angel Fund, Cherry said, “has helped me to share with all my clients the benefits that are out there – the people, the loving way that they went about it, their generosity.”

By ERIKA I. RITCHIE | eritchie@scng.com | Orange County Register

ANAHEIM   Michael Diehl has had Osiris since the pit bull was just a pup.  Diehl, 46, suffers from sudden seizures and Osiris helps keep him safe, alerting him before they happen, he said.  “He means everything to me,” he said. “He protects me from everything.”  

As one of hundreds living on the riverbed of the Santa Ana River Trail, Diehl was among 60 people and their pets who took advantage of free veterinary services offered on Sunday, July 30.

The services were offered by two groups, the Healthcare Emergency Animal Rescue Team out of Yorba Linda run by veterinarians Debra and Dr. Todd Kopit, and  Dr. Mark Malo, vice president of the  Animal Health Foundation, a nonprofit that is a charitable wing of the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association.

The veterinarians did wellness checks, vaccinations, de-worming and parasite treatment.

“We launched this program because we know there are many services for homeless people but not for their pets, ” said Malo, who also works at the Garden Grove Dog and Cat Hospital. “These people are dedicated to their animals. They would go without their own meals to feed them.”

Angel Nole, 32, brought his dog Bandit, a Dalmatian pit bull-mix, for shots and flea control. He also brought Robin, a six-week-old pup for his first puppy shots.

“It helps out a lot,” said Nole said, adding that he can’t afford any veterinary care.

TJ and Chance Ivey were thankful for the opportunity to get their pit bull-Labrador-mix Daisy checked out.

Daisy has helped make life bearable for the couple, they said.

“She brightens everybody’s day,” TJ Ivey said. “If they’re disgusted with life, she walks up to them and it’s a blessing.”