Posts in Category: AHF Grant Recipients

Yassmin Flores has a very special relationship with Junior, her German Shepherd.  “He is my baby, my little boy,” she said.  “I don’t have children and he’s like my child.”

So it was a shock in the summer of 2014, when she noticed a growth on one of his toes. It was not cancerous, Dr. Howard Brown at Pet Vet Animal Hospital in Canoga Park told her after a biopsy.  But it was a dangerous fungus that had grown quickly and needed to be removed quickly.

“It was in the bone and it was eating his toe,” Yassmin said. “You could see it growing.  You could see the bone. It just kept growing and growing.”

Yassmin took Junior to Dr. Brown within a week or two of the moment she first saw the fungus. “The funny part was,” she said, “ that a couple of weeks before I first noticed it, I had taken him in to get his toenails trimmed and there was nothing there.  They didn’t see anything.

“Dr. Brown said that we needed to take care of this quickly because it could just keep growing and spreading and it could go all the way to Junior’s leg and could mean eventually having to amputate his leg.”

Yassmin, who lives in Tarzana, works part time at an auction house and she could not afford the cost of the surgery to remove the affected toe. The staff at Pet Vet suggested that she apply to Angel Fund for help. She did and quickly qualified for assistance. Angel Fund and the hospital each contributed $500 toward the surgery bill.

“I thank them so much,” Yassmin said. “They’re wonderful and they’re awesome!  It’s nice that someone is there who cares so much [as Angel Fund does].”

Today, more than a year later, Junior is much as he was before, although Yassmin said that he is calmer than he used to be and seems to tire more easily.  “He doesn’t jump like he used to,” she said, “and you can tell that he sometimes has pain.  I give him doggy aspirin and that helps.”

Junior is now 11 years old and Yassmin is grateful to the staff at Pet Vet and to Angel Fund that he is healthy again.

Last Spring, Scott and Barbara Peterson had a visitor to their Tustin apartment – a beautiful black and white cat who was affectionate and loving.  The animal – they named her Boots because of her white paws – soon became a part of the family.

But after a few weeks they realized that Boots was putting on weight, that she was pregnant.

When the time came for Boots to deliver her litter, it quickly became clear that something was wrong.  She was in extreme discomfort and seemed unable to give birth.  Scott searched the internet and found a website which suggested that a mother cat who was in labor for five hours should be taken to the hospital.  He went back to the internet to look for a nearby veterinarian and decided to take Boots to Veterinary Surgical Specialists in Tustin not far from their home.

There Dr. Diane Craig performed a cesarean section and delivered two kittens. She told Scott and Barbara that one of the kittens was simply too big to be delivered by a normal birth.

Scott, a retired electrician, did not have the financial resources to pay the hospital and surgery bills. He applied for an Angel Fund grant and was approved for $500, an amount that the clinic matched. He and Barbara are grateful for the help they received and the care Boots was given.

Today, Boots, who was spayed when her kittens were delivered, is an indoor cat.  One of the kittens still lives with the Petersons.  “She [Boots] is really pretty.  She’s black with white paws and a white tuxedo look,” Scott said.  And she is healthy and happy. He    e H

“I thought it was miraculous that she came to us when she was pregnant,” he said. “If she hadn’t done that, she probably wouldn’t have survived.  She just walked in the door. We didn’t realize she was pregnant at first.  But if she hadn’t come to us, she would not have lived.”

Did she have some inkling that she might need help? “I don’t know,” Scott said.  “Maybe somebody else sent her our way.  Maybe somebody from above.”

Some five years ago, Martha Slater was working in her garden, happily weeding and troweling.  Suddenly, she said, “here is this little black kitten. He came up and spent the entire day with me, sitting and watching me in a very companionable way. I brought him some food and water and, in the evening when I went in, he stayed, sleeping on the couch on our deck. Our two cats looked at him [through the window] and he looked at them.”

During the next week, the kitten continued to spend a lot of time with Martha. So she decided that she should find out where he had come from. “It turned out that he lived two houses away from us. I knocked on their door and introduced myself. One of the kids in the family came over and picked up Magic [the kitten’s name] and he seemed very happy to go home.

But, she said, Magic continued to spend a lot of time at her house. And she discovered that other people in the neighborhood also knew him, including her upstairs neighbors, Cameo and Misheda, who weren’t cat people until they met him.  “He did a lot of visiting. He loves children. He loves other cats.  But he doesn’t love dogs,” she said. “At 8 o’clock in the morning you’d see him with his tail high escorting kids to school. When the kids came home at the end of the day, there he’d be walking them back home.”

Martha started calling the kitten Bituminous and her husband Rob shortened it to Tuminous.

One day, the kitten appeared to have an eye infection and Martha alerted the family. “They said, ‘We don’t know what to do.’ So I went to the pharmacy and got some eye wash and irrigated his eyes. I didn’t mind because he is such a sweet compliant fellow.”

Later, the cat showed up at her house and was unable to use one of his legs. “I thought he might have fallen but I didn’t think anything was broken. I suggested to the family that he needed to go to a veterinarian. They said they didn’t have the time for that. I suggested they keep him in because I didn’t think he could get away if a coyote came after him.” The family put the cat in a guest bathroom, Martha said – but he was back at her house in a couple of hours. He stayed with her for a couple of days until he was better.

Last spring, Tuminous showed up at Martha’s house one morning clearly sick. “He was dribbling urine and it was bloody.  He was so uncomfortable and it seemed like a urinary blockage. We’ve had that with our cats before.  So I called his people.  I said he is suffering and he really needs to go to the vet. One of the children called the father and asked him could come take the cat. So I wrapped him in a blanket. When I talked to the father, he said: ‘I don’t want him bleeding all over my white leather [car] seats.’ They took him to the vet but they wouldn’t leave him overnight. . . . He came to my house soon after that and he was in such pain and so sick. I called the family but the father was ‘too busy’ to return my call.

“So I called Dr. [Gary] Gauthier and he said to throw him in the car and bring him in [to Arch Beach Veterinary Clinic in Laguna Beach]. It was 8 or 9 o’clock.  He needed hydrating and he needed surgery.  When the father found out, he called Dr. Gauthier and said: ‘Well, just put him to sleep. This is costing too much.’ I told the doctor that I didn’t care what it would cost.  We can pay over a period of time.” Her husband was running a tech startup, she said, and they did not have much money at the time.

So Tuminous had his surgery. Several neighbors who knew the social black cat contributed money to help pay the bill.  And Dr. Gauthier suggested that help might be available from Angel Fund.  Martha filled out an application and her request was granted. Angel Fund and the clinic each contributed $500.

Today Tuminous is his old social self.  His former family is gone. He has many good human friends and he can sleep and eat with several of them. “He’s very healthy. He’s amazing.  He’s sleek and long.  And he’s spoiled rotten,” Martha said.

One morning late in January, 2013, Nichole Castaneda, was on her way to work.  She heard a dog barking across the street. It was a small dog – a Shih Tzu – and it was alone.  Nichole called to the dog and it ran across the street.

“It almost got hit by a car,” she said. ”I was wearing a sweater with a drawstring so I took out the drawstring and tied it around the dog.  Then I took it to the 7-11 that is next to my work” at a Weinerschnitzel fast food restaurant.  She asked a clerk at the 7-11 if she knew the owner of the dog.  The answer was no.  But the clerk said that a coworker might want to take in the animal. The coworker took it home.  But the dog’s barking annoyed his neighbors.  The next day, the dog was returned to Nichole at the Weinerschnitzel.  She put the dog in a shopping cart with a bowl of water and placed cardboard over the top.

“When I got off work, I took her home. She was urinating blood so I took her to an animal hospital.  They took x-rays.  She had no microchip. She had two ear infections. She had a bladder infection and three big bladder stones. She needed antibiotics and ear medication and they set up an appointment to do surgery for the bladder stones.”

By this time, Nichole and the dog – she named it Sally after a character in the movie, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” – had become fond companions. The surgery would cost more than $5,000, Nichole was told, far more than she could afford on her modest income.

“What I did was I went online to Giveforward.com and set up an account where people could donate money toward Sally’s surgery,” she said.  She also posted an account of Sally’s adventures on her Facebook page.  Both brought contributions.  She also found Angel Fund online and submitted an application, which was approved.

“Angel Fund was awesome,” Nichole said.  “I really appreciated their help – a lot. And the same with the hospital and the Giveforward people. And everyone else who helped.” The surgery was performed at Veterinary Healthcare Center in Monterey Park in December, 2013. Angel Fund and the hospital each contributed $500.

Today, Sally is thriving at about seven years of age. “Sally is not afraid of anyone. She is friendly with other animals, children, old people. She is not afraid of fireworks, either,” Nichole said.

And the Shih Tzu gets lots of tender, loving care from Nichole and her 14-year-old daughter, Mary Lou. They live with Nichole’s dad and his second family in Rosemead. There are three other dogs, two cats and several children in the household – a great home for a friendly dog like Sally.

In January, 2014, Juli Bill was struggling to make ends meet. She was a nursing student at Long Beach State and paid the family bills with a part-time job at Disneyland and child support payments. Juli has two children – an 18-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son. An animal person, she has two dogs – an American Bulldog and a Weimaraner – and a horse that is boarded in Whittier.

So it was not welcome news when she learned that Hades, HHa 130-pound bulldog, needed knee surgery.

“I noticed that he was having some issues standing up in the morning when I took him outside,” she said in an interview. “I thought at first that he was just a little stiff. But when he had to go out in the middle of the night and he couldn’t get up and started dragging his rear end – that really concerned me. That’s when I took him to the vet.”

She went to Los Alamitos Animal Hospital. “It was actually both of his knees,” she said. “We did one and now we have to do the other.” But that first cruciate repair surgery was more than Juli’s budget could handle. Her daughter was about to graduate from high school and there were extra bills to pay. She set up a website about Hades and got about $1,000 in donations from friends “and a lot of different people.”

Dr. Claudia Horvath, the hospital’s medical director, told Juli about Angel Fund. “If it weren’t for them (Angel Fund), I don’t know what I would have done,” she said. “There was no way I could afford the surgery on my own.” Angel Fund and the hospital each contributed $500. The staff at the hospital, Juli said, was fantastic. “They did everything for me. Everyone was so helpful and informative.”

After the surgery, she said, Hades had to be sedated before she could take him home to her house in Lakewood. Today, he is a happy dog – but he limps because the other knee is still unrepaired.

Juli is now planning his second surgery. She put her nursing education on hold and has left her Disneyland job, which paid just a bit more than minimum wage, for a full-time job at the California Department of Motor Vehicles. “It’s a good job. I have fun there, although it’s not my calling,” she said. But it pays the bills and she has been saving for Hades second surgery. She will do it when she can take vacation time so she’ll be at home during the initial stages of his recovery.

In June, 2013, Rebecca Martinez noticed a small dog running in the middle of the street near her Glendora home. “I tried to get her for a day and a half and I finally got two of my girl friends to come over and we were able to catch her,” she said in an interview.

“We took her to a local animal shelter. And we posted pictures of her and tried to find her owner. After a few days, the people at the shelter said it would be best if we took her home because she had a heart condition. If we had left her there, they would have had to put her to sleep. So we took her home.”

And, she said, “we tried to adopt her out but nobody wanted her with that [heart] issue. So we took her to a few different veterinarians and then we took her to a cardiologist to see exactly what was wrong. It’s been a long road.”

Through all this, the dog the family named Peatree was stealing the hearts of Rebecca, husband Jose and their two children. “Oh, yeah, I was attached to her already,” Rebecca said, “I just didn’t want to admit it.” The five-pound Chihuahua mix was one to three years old at the time, veterinarians said.

“I’m always picking up animals and I never had a problem finding an owner or being able to help a dog get adopted out,” Rebecca said. “And this was the only one I’ve ever been stuck with. And we love her to death! She came to us for a reason. She knew we weren’t going to let anything bad happen to her.”

There were a couple of surprises in store, however. “When we picked her up, we didn’t know that she was pregnant. So we couldn’t do the surgery she needed for her heart. And there was another catch: when she had x-rays to see how many puppies there were – the veterinarian could only see two but there were three – she had a shattered pelvic bone, either from being kicked or hit or some traumatic injury and she could not have a natural puppy birth. She would have to have a C-section.”

Peatree had a congenital heart defect, left-to-right shunting PDA, but Rebecca and Jose, who works for a wire money transfer firm, have not been able to afford the surgery. The cost was $5,000, she was told. But Peatree is now four or five years old and is doing well. Two of her puppies are part of the family and the third one lives next door. “They’re all healthy and happy,” Rebecca said.

She was told about Angel Fund by a friend of a friend, who runs an animal rescue center. “We maxed out two credit cards just for having the C-section and the after care,” Rebecca said.

Angel Fund and Advanced Veterinary Care Center in Lawndale, where the Martinez family had taken Peatree to see a cardiologist, each contributed $500 to help defray the mounting costs.

“The foundation was so helpful,” Rebecca recalled. If we hadn’t had that help, we wouldn’t have been able to make the right choice for Peatree. I am so appreciative.”

Thanks for Dr. Weatherford and Dr. Toro of the Tustin Santa Ana Veterinary Hospital for applying for the AHF Angel Fund grant to help 20 week old Koko’s family pay for critical diagnosis and care.

In the summer of 2013, Tess – Rochelle Bates’ beautiful black and white cat – was no longer easy to be around. “When she opened her mouth across the room from you, the odor could just about knock you down,” she said. “It was intense. And it had developed very quickly over a couple of months.”

Rochelle and husband Ed had taken in Tess when she was a feral kitten. She soon became a loved member of their household. So Rochelle took the cat, just four years old, to a dental cleaning clinic at a pet store. The veterinarian who examined Tess “took one look inside her mouth and he told me what was wrong. He said: ‘All her teeth are rotting. You’re going to need to take her to a veterinary dentist.’ It’s a congenital condition.”

Rochelle, a former writer and producer in Hollywood, is disabled and her husband Ed was unemployed at the time so she immediately began to search for a dental specialist who could give Tess the treatment she needed – surgery for tooth resorption and stomatitis – at an affordable cost. “It was a rough time for this to happen,” she said.

“I called around to lots of veterinary clinics and found that the treatment was just too expensive. It was thousands of dollars to have all her teeth removed – or some of her teeth removed. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. So I looked on line for different grants and explored every one that was available – every single one.” Finally, she found Angel Fund. “It was the only one left. And it was the one that helped us.” Angel Fund provided a list of hospitals that could do the surgery. She chose the Dog and Cat Dentist in Culver City not far from her home.

She took Tess to the clinic and met Dr. Anson Tsugawa, VMD, DAVDC, and Jody Janes, RVT. “They were just the most wonderful people,” she said. “Jody is so kind. She shepherded all the paper work through and it was processed very quickly. There was a small balance that I had to pay. But they [Angel Fund and the hospital] covered almost everything. It was so amazingly generous of them!” Angel Fund and the hospital each contributed $500.

Dr. Tsugawa at first thought that he could save four of Tess’s teeth. But he called Rochelle after her cat was under anesthesia and said that all her teeth should be extracted. “Otherwise,” he told her, “she’ll have to come back and have the others removed later. We might as well do all of them when she’s young and healthy.”

The surgery “made a world of difference,” Rochelle said. “Tess had a very quick recovery and you would never know now that she doesn’t have any teeth. Dr. Tsugawa told us what would happen and that’s exactly what happened.”

Tess needed pain medication and antibiotics for a few days. Rochelle said that she gave the patient and her other two cats soft food at first, then switched to dry food. “Tess ate it with them [the other cats]. Now she eats a mixture of wet and dry food, like she always did before. She doesn’t care.”

The surgery has made a “world of difference” for Tess, she said. “Her personality has really blossomed since she doesn’t have that pain. I can only imagine what it was like for her.

“And I will always he so grateful to them [Dr. Tsugawa and Angel Fund] for this because, honestly, I don’t know what we would have done.”

It is with great sadness that AHF grant recipient The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee announced the passing of Frieda.

The much loved 49-year-old Asian elephant came to The Sanctuary after a lifetime of performing. Frieda resided at The Sanctuary’s Quarantine Barn & Habitat with her longtime companions, elephants Billie and Liz –known as “the threesome”– and their ‘herd’ mates, Minnie, Ronnie and Debbie.

Frieda arrived in sanctuary in 2006 underweight and suffering from arthritis, osteomyelitis (a terminal bone disease caused by standing for too long on cement), and exposure to tuberculosis. Over the last few weeks, the progression of these chronic conditions and the associated pain worsened. Frieda was humanely euthanized on Monday afternoon. She passed away peacefully, surrounded by those who cared for and loved her. Billie and Liz were nearby.

She will be missed.

To read Frieda’s whole story go here:  https://www.elephants.com/frieda/friedaBio.php

Thanks to the doctors and staff of the Lomita Animal Hospital, Mickey’s family could afford the fracture surgery he needed because the hospital reached out to the Angel Fund for a grant.

And, now, he’s a happy boy!