Posts Tagged: Angel Fund

One day a few weeks ago, Ashley Bettencourt came home from her job as a pre-school teacher and found her tabby cat Cheeto in distress.

“He wasn’t himself,” she said. “He wasn’t eating.  He was lethargic and was lying on the tile in the hallway.  He wasn’t moving.  Nothing worked that I knew would make him excited. 

“I thought maybe he was constipated but I pressed on his belly and it was really hard.  It made me nervous.  So I called the Cat Care Clinic where my in-laws take their cats.  After taking him in for an examination, I was told that he had a blocked bladder – he wasn’t able to urinate.”

That was on a Friday.  Dr. Maggie Mills treated Cheeto.  “They didn’t have to do surgery but they kept him in the hospital the whole weekend so they could keep an eye on him,” Ashley said.  “They put in a catheter.  But they said he took it out himself.  So they put the tubes back in and he didn’t fight them again. 

“When I took him in to the clinic, I wasn’t expecting what was coming,” she said. “I thought he was constipated and they would fix it and I would take him home.   So when it came time to pay I was like, ‘I can’t do this.’

But the staff at Cat Care was understanding and helpful.   April, the assistant practice manager, “was so sweet and nice,” Ashley said.   “She printed me out a list of foundations that could help and she pointed out who to call and told me what to do.   Angel Fund was the first to say, ‘We’ll help you.’  I had never done something like that before.  It was overwhelming in a good way.

“I went home and I cried that night.  I thought what happened was amazing.  I couldn’t believe it.”  She said that she found another charitable group that helped pay her bill.  And the Cat Care Clinic found some money from another fund and they used that to help as well, she said.

“They said (at Cat Care) that, if we couldn’t do this, they would have had to euthanize Cheeto.  He always had been such a healthy cat that is horrible to even think about.  I love that Angel Fund and the veterinary association are letting people know about this.   I wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for Dr. Mills and April.”

Cheeto recovered quickly.  “Now, he is good, he’s happy,” Ashley said.  “He’s lost a lot of weight.  But he’s eating well. He’s drinking a lot of water.   And he’s fine, he’s active and he’s playing with our other cats.”

Cheeto is the father of the other cats, Roxy, Khola Man and Sprinkles – all named by Ashley’s daughters.  There is also a dog in the family, Benny a miniature Doberman, with whom Cheeto is a best buddy.  “We are a house that loves our fur babies,” Ashley said.

Cheeto became a member of the family after Ashley’s husband found him hiding among tires at the warehouse where he worked.  He was a three-week-old kitten at the time and had to be bottle fed.

Ashley is a single parent to three daughters: Bella, 13; Skylar, 11 and Audrina, 7.  She loves her job as a pre-school teacher.  “It’s challenging but I love it.  my students are four and five.  They talk fast but they’re willing to learn and they love it.”

Noreen Sturges, who lost her 15-year-old canine companion Papillon last year, found a replacement a few months ago in Lulu, a female Maltese. “Lulu was rather matted, had a hacking cough and needed care and lots of love,” Noreen said.

Lulu had belonged to a family that was no longer able to provide her with the care and attention she needed.  When Lulu was brought to Noreen’s home, “it was love at first sight,” she said.

Noreen hired a groomer to attend to Lulu’s matted hair.  After the grooming, Noreen took Lulu to Monarch Veterinary Hospital in Laguna Niguel not far from her home.  

Dr. Kelly Alcala examined her and found some serious dental issues that would require surgery and the extraction of some teeth. Lulu also had a hacking cough – “not like she would have had with a cold,” Noreen said.  Dr. Alcala told her that she thought decay from the dog’s teeth was getting into her digestive system and probably causing the cough, Noreen said.

The doctor suggested that Noreen apply for a Boydston Grant to help pay for Lulu’s treatment and surgery.  A grant of $500 was approved and Dr. Alacala did the surgery.  The dog is now thriving, Noreen said, and the hacking cough is gone. 

Lulu is eating her new diet voraciously.  “And she’s a love!” Noreen said. “Everything’s good now.”  The dog, she said, “is running around – up and down the stairs and all over the place.

“I didn’t think I could ever love a dog as much as my Papillon, “but I just love Lulu.”

She added that she is grateful for the help provided by her Boydston grant and the matching sum from Monarch Hospital, as well as for the work of Dr. Alcala.  “I just love her, too,” she said.

Noreen said that she and Lulu “are having a lovely time together.  She is quite a companion.”

For more information about the Animal Health Foundation’s Angel Fund CLICK HERE

Yelena and her mother have been rescuing dogs and cats they find on the streets near their Reseda home for years, often finding them homes, if they cannot locate their owners.

That’s how they found Mila nearly two years ago.  A Poddle mix, she “was running around and she was in horrible condition,” said Yelena, who asked that Pulse not use her full name.  “She clearly had not been eating well and she was covered with fleas.  I had to give her three baths, one after the other. 

“We tried to find her owner.  She did not have a chip.  We posted a description of her and some people contacted us and said they thought she was their dog.  But none of them sent us a picture of her and we ended up keeping her.  I think we gave her a really good life.”

A few months ago, Yelena noticed that Mila “was straining to pee. I checked her and there was no blood.  But I took her to the vet, who asked if I had seen any blood and if Mila was eating.  The vet prescribed antibiotics, thinking the problem might be an infection. 

“That seemed to help her a little bit. But then I took her to the dog park and every five seconds she was squatting down and acting like she was going to pee.  And I decided I would take her either to the emergency clinic or the vet.  Then I looked again and I finally saw some blood.”

Yelena called VCA McClave Animal Hospital not far from her home.  “I told them exactly what was going on.  They said this was an emergency, since there was blood, and to bring her in.  Dr. Carina Cortez told me that they would prefer to do x-rays and a few other procedures,” Yelena said.

 “I was thinking, oh this poor dog!  When Dr. [Nada] Khalaf [co-medical director at McClave] called me after she saw the dog, she told me: ‘We can’t keep giving her antibiotics – we would just be going in circles.’”

Dr. Khalaf said that she saw the stone shadow on an ultrasound.  She told Yelena that she suspected stones but needed radiographs to confirm they were there.  When the x-rays were taken, they showed “two enormous stones in her tiny bladder,” Yelena said.  

“I said that I wanted to help the dog, but I really couldn’t financially, and I asked if there was any kind of financial plan I could do.  And Dr. Khalaf said she could refer me to Angel Fund.  I had never heard of Angel Fund.  She said: ‘I don’t know how much they can help you’ but that she would call and we would see. 

“And I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, maybe they would help!’  Dr. Khalaf called back and said Angel Fund would help.  I was thinking maybe $100 or $300. But the doctor said they would do more – $1,000 – and the hospital also would help, matching the grant, and that they would help me open a CareCredit account. 

Dr. Cortez performed the surgery to remove the stones.

“I was really so grateful,” Yelena said.  “I am just very, very thankful.”  She also expressed gratitude to Dr. Khalaf: “She’s the one who helped set everything up.”

She also said that she would “rate Angel Fund at 200 on a scale of 100.”  The day she learned that she was getting the grant “was a very emotional day for me.”

Mila is now doing well, she said.  “After the surgery we had some antibiotics and pain medication.  She was told to keep Mila from running and jumping for two weeks but the dog wanted to do just that.  She now urinates normally.  “She’s 100 percent different from the way she was in the dog park.

“Mila is a very special dog.”

Some five years ago, Linda Lockwood found a stray cat outside her home in Vancouver, British Columbia.  “She was nobody’s cat.  I contacted shelters and looked around the neighborhood.  Nobody claimed her.  The shelter asked if I could keep her.  I had another cat but I thought I could take care of two.  So I said, OK, fine.”

Linda named her new charge Mango. She soon discovered that the new family member had some chronic health problems, particularly constipation.  “She had to get enemas once or twice a month,” she said.

Linda came to Southern California to go to school in June, 2014, with Mango in tow on the airplane.  (Her other cat had died.)  She enrolled at Pierce College in Winnetka, intending to become a veterinary technician because of her love of animals. But she ran into some trouble with a chemistry course and decided to change her major to computer science.  She did well – all A’s and one B –but decided to enroll at California Institute of the Arts to pursue her first love, music.  She will complete course work this spring on a master of fine arts degree.  Earlier, she had earned a bachelor’s degree of music in jazz studies from Vancouver Island University in British Columbia.

In November of 2015, Mango’s chronic constipation became a very real problem.  “She would poop everywhere – on my bed, on the floor,” Linda said.  “Sometimes, she’d try to poop and she couldn’t, so she’d cry. She was losing weight. She was extremely bloated because her colon was impacted.”  Linda had little money to spend but she took Mango to Happy Pets Veterinary Center in Valencia.

“They took x-rays and they told me how severe the problem was.  I just didn’t know what I was going to do,” Linda said. “Eventually, Dr. [Jane] Kelly told me, Mango was going to require surgery to remove almost the entire colon. She said she would have to refer me to a surgery specialist and that could cost more than $5,000 – and I just didn’t have that kind of money. But Dr. Kelly said that Mango’s life is at risk.  If you are unable to afford it, she’ll have to be put down.”

Dr. Kelly put Mango on intravenous fluids, multiple enemas, laxatives and pain medication for three days to stabilize her condition and suggested that Linda apply to Angel Fund for help. She did and received a grant of $275, a sum matched by Happy Pets.

But Mango still needed surgery.  “I found myself looking on the ground for coins, when I walked on campus,” Linda said.  “It only cost $1.20 to get rice and beans at my school, so that’s what I was eating.” Dr. Kelly suggested going to a low-cost clinic.

Linda talked to several clinics before selecting one. She raised money on a website, the largest contribution coming from a friend in Canada.  Mango got her surgery but the stitches holding the incision together quickly came out. “It was a gruesome thing. Her intestines came out,” Linda said.  “Everybody thought she was going to die.  I took her back and they sewed her up again – and the stitches came out again.”

This time, Linda found another veterinarian (on Christmas Eve), who repaired the damage and ordered Mango confined to a cage for a month as she healed. “After that month she was cage free and was as good as new,” Linda said.  “Today, she’s doing very well.  I give her everything that I can.”

And, she added, “I can’t believe I went through all of that.  I had to get extensions on all my essays and I had to leave classes early to pick Mango up.”

Linda believes that Angel Fund played a major role in saving her cat’s life. “Without them, I don’t know if Mango would have been in condition for what came next. The time she was in the hospital [at Happy Pets] bought some time for me to make plans for what to do.  I’m very grateful for what Angel Fund did for Mango.”

She also praised Dr. Kelly: “She is very compassionate and very caring.  I know she did it for Mango.”

And, she said, “It’s amazing how people, even if they don’t know you, they love animals.  I’m very grateful for what everyone has done for Mango.”

In October, 2015, Tamar Goldberg took Lily, her young shepard mix, for some exercise to a dog park near her Balboa Lake home in the San Fernando Valley. Lily was young – a little more than a year old. And she still had many of the instincts of a puppy.

Later, she was “eating a lot of grass and trying to throw up,” Tamar said. “She was unable to jump up on the sofa. She hadn’t pooped. Clearly, she was not acting right. I didn’t know what was wrong.”

So Tamar took Lily to VCA McClave Animal Hospital on Reseda Blvd. “The vet [Dr. Nada Khalaf] believed she had a blockage and tried a lot of things to treat her without surgery, which was going to be expensive. Nothing showed on her x-rays so we didn’t know what was causing it. After two days, she wasn’t any better and she wasn’t eating. So we decided to open her up.”

Dr. Khalaf found a rubber nose off a stuffed animal. “It looked like a pig snout. Lily swallowed it whole. When it got to the small intestine, it couldn’t pass. It was like a cork,” Tamar said. “Part of her intestine had started to die so Dr. Khalaf had to cut away the dead tissue before she sewed her back up.”

Lily healed quickly and today at the age of two she is a normal, healthy dog. “She is great. No problem,” Tamar said. “But we don’t go to the dog park any more. Now we do a lot of hiking.”

Tamar and husband, Darren, a transportation captain who coordinates drivers for shoots of television commercials, applied to Angel Fund for help when they knew that surgery was needed. “I had not been working and we were a little bit short,” Tamar said. “Angel Fund contributed $600 and so did the hospital and we took out a personal loan.”

She added that the hospital was very helpful. And, she said, ”for sure” the surgery saved Lily’s life. “If she hadn’t had the surgery, she wouldn’t have made it. There’s no question about that.”

Tamar now is working as a special education teacher for an LAUSD charter school. Lily and her sister, Awesome, are best pals to her two children. Awesome is seven-year-old son Zeke’s dog and sleeps on his bed. Lily is 10-year-old Ariella’s dog and sleeps on her bed.

Ann Champion, a production designer in film and television, has “always had animals and the one promise I always make them is, if their lives are at stake and they can continue on with quality of life, I’m not going to arbitrarily end their lives because I don’t have money.”

That promise was put to a severe test last summer.  Her Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, then about 9½ years old and a picture of health, suddenly and inexplicably lost the use of her legs.

“Lillie had always been very fit,” Ann said, “so it was devastating to find her collapsed on the floor beside her bed when I went to get her to go for our walk [one August day]. She was completely alert and could raise her head and wag her tail, but even though she was trying to move all four legs she could not get them underneath her to stand up.”

Lillie weighed 110 pounds, “almost as much as I do,” Ann said.  So it was almost impossible to move her.  But Ann managed to get her in her car, with help from a neighbor, for a trip to an emergency hospital. The doctor did x-rays and blood tests that showed nothing wrong. He recommended taking her to a neurologist at a specialty hospital.

The neurologist recommended putting Lillie on steroids to reduce inflammation in the discs in her neck, which she thought were causing the problem.  That sounded better to Ann than the other option – expensive surgery.  “It would be a reasonable course of treatment and we could expect a good outcome,” the  neurologist told her.

Quickly, Lillie was doing better.  After a few days, the hospital wanted to send Lillie home to recover with outpatient physical therapy.  “That created a whole new set of problems,” Ann said. “She was a very big girl and there was no way to get in or out of our Studio City home without having to negotiate steps. While there was a lot I was capable of doing to help her to continue to improve, I could not lift her.”

So Ann found a rehabilitation hospital. Lillie was fitted with a harness that made it easier to help her. The doctor at the rehab hospital said that he expected a full recovery.  “The only negative in all this truly blessed and positive news was that it would take time – and time was money that I didn’t have.”

Ann had maxed out her Care Credit card and she applied for a higher limit. She also asked about Angel Fund and applied for help.  She recalled visiting Lillie and taking her for a walk in the corridor with the help of the special harness a few days later.

“She was doing really well.  I didn’t have to support her front end at all and she was placing her hind feet correctly and she was pulling me through the corridor.  And I was thinking: ‘Yes! A couple more weeks of this and we’re gonna be home and walking up the hill.’  Then Lillie started doing less well, running a fever  . . . and she started back sliding.”

The rehab hospital wanted Lillie to have a checkup so Ann took her to a nearby hospital, which found nothing wrong besides the disc problem.  Ann decided to take her to the veterinarian in Pasadena who had treated Lillie in the past. He found liver problems, including a lesion.  “So that was it,” she said, “there was nothing more that could be done. It was such a shock. Several vets had said: ‘You should have a full recovery’ or ‘You should expect a good outcome.’  Nobody said, ‘well, she may not make it.’ So I made this huge leap of faith and took on this enormous financial commitment.  I‘m going to be paying for the rest of my life.”

Expenses for Lillie’s care totaled more than $9,000, including euthanasia and aquamation.  She used her Care Credit to pay the balance owed to the rehab hospital – less $500 provided by Angel Fund.  She also tried to raise money through an online website but after Lillie had to be put down that did not work.  “I was very grateful for the help I got from Angel Fund.  In this kind of situation, everything is a help.  It’s a wonderful program.  It was a godsend.”

Ann is struggling financially because working in the film and television industry is erratic at best.

Ann had given a home to a Swissy named Rozie before Lillie came into her life.  She had lived with Rozie for six years after acquiring her at age six.  So she had expected to have more time with Lillie, who had come into her life at four and a half years old.

Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs “are, without a doubt, the most wonderful dogs you can imagine in terms of their disposition,” she said.  “They are beautiful and they are just absolutely incredible. But as much as I love the breed, I will never have another.  They are so wonderful and you love them so much and their life span is so short.  When they die, they just rip your heart out.”

In December, 2014, Lisa Marie Sirko, who had gone to the Downey Animal Shelter to check out another dog, saw Mickey for the first time. Though he was emaciated and sick, she was impressed: “I saw this Rottweiler-Pit Bull head and a little short stubby body and I said: ‘Oh my gosh, what an amazingly adorable dog! What is he doing here?’

“So I had to get him out [of the shelter]. When I got him home and started feeding him, he ate pretty well.  But then he started vomiting. And he had diarrhea really bad and I there was blood.  So I took him to Lomita Pet Hospital and Dr. Sandra Kim.”

Mickey defecated part of a child’s stuffed animal that he had ingested – and it was nearly the size of his stomach. The hospital did surgery to remove other remnants of the toy that might be in his stomach or intestines.  Lisa Marie and Dr. Kim decided that Mickey probably had been very hungry and swallowed the stuffed toy in a search for food. “When people leave a dog in a fenced-in yard and don’t feed him, he will try to find something to eat. He was starving and ate that stuffed animal,” Lisa Marie said.

A few weeks after Mickey’s surgery, Lisa Marie put him in the back seat of her car. As she drove, a cat ran across the street and Mickey jumped up on the armrest near the side window. “His little legs hit the window button and the window started going down. I couldn’t roll it up because his foot was on the remote in the back seat. I pulled over and he jumped out of the window and his right rear foot hit the curb and fractured.  “I was overwhelmed with guilt. But I got him back in the car and took him to Dr. Kim.”

The veterinarian did surgery on the leg and put it in a cast. Lisa Marie, who had a small employment talent search company at the time, was struggling to make money in an economy in which companies were down-sizing and her rates had been discounted. (She later shut down the company to devote full time to saving dogs that she sees as discriminated-against breeds: Pit Bull, Rottweiler and Mastiff). She applied to Angel Fund for assistance.  She got help – for which she was grateful – from both Angel Fund and Lomita Pet Hospital.

Today, Mickey is doing well.  But, after two years of healing and rehab, Lisa Marie gave him to a new friend. “I wanted to keep him but I came across somebody who had lost his dog, who looked almost exactly like Mickey. He fell in love with Mickey. And I thought Mickey could fill his broken heart – which he did – and get all the attention in the world.  I still see him.  He’s my little step boy. But he’s No. 1 in somebody else’s life now.”

And Lisa Marie is working hard at finding, rescuing and rehabilitating discriminated-against dogs. It is work of passion and love for her. “Now I’m building a little team and I’m starting to plan a nonprofit to help these dogs. It’s hard being a one-woman show.  I don’t spend money on myself and I get some income from helping people train their dogs. And animal lovers will ask if they can donate to help the dogs. We get surprised by gifts such as a bag of dog food or a doggie bed. And it all makes a huge difference.

“I keep it small. I’ll usually have just three or four dogs. They’re healthy, they’re well fed and exercised. And they know the basic commands. More than half the dogs I have saved are therapy dogs, some with service certification.

“I always do what’s best for the animal. And I like quality over quantity.” Lisa Marie works out of her home in San Pedro.

A week and a half before Christmas in 2014, Mary Parmer and her son Bill were in her Apple Valley home when there was a sudden eruption of noise outside – barking, snarling and shrieking.

They quickly investigated and discovered their two small dogs – a Corgi mix named Lucy and a Chihuahua mix named Lady under attack by three large dogs in the yard next door.

Before the three large dogs, including a Boxer mix and a Pit Bull mix, could be chased away from the smaller dogs, Lady was dead and Lucy had suffered severe lacerations.

“We didn’t have a car here, so Bill ran to a neighbor’s house and asked them to take us to the vet.  Lucy was ripped open in several places. She had surgery and was in [Bear Valley Animal] hospital several days, then she came home. But she had to go back for more surgery a week later. And she had to go back for more treatment after that.”

Mary is a retired widow who worked part-time for 25 years at Victor Valley College and Bill had been laid off from a maintenance job there so there was little money to pay Lucy’s bills.  The hospital suggested Angel Fund, which stepped in with $500, a sum matched by the hospital. Mary is grateful for the assistance that saved her pet’s life. A daughter helped her with subsequent veterinary bills.

Lucy still shows signs of the trauma she suffered.  Now about two years old, “she has good days and bad days and every now and then you can tell that her wounds still bother her,” Mary said. “She has trouble jumping. She is usually a very active dog and sometimes she gets real still and doesn’t have much energy.”

Before the attacks, Lucy slept on her bed, Mary said.  Since Lucy could not jump up on the bed during her recovery, Mary made herself a bed on the floor and slept there with Lucy for a few weeks after her surgery.

For a long time after the attacks, Mary said, Lucy would go out in the yard and look for Lady. “She missed her so much.  So we went out and got her another pal. They have a great time together.” The new dog is Crystal, also a Chihuahua mix.

Lucy came to Mary’s house originally when a friend found her at the side of the road not far away.  “She couldn’t keep her so we took her in. We checked with animal control and people in the neighborhood but no one claimed her.” That was about six months before the attack by the neighbor’s dogs.

The two yards are separated by a wooden fence. “I don’t know how our dogs got into their yard. I think the big dogs dragged them through the fence,” Mary said. The three large dogs still live next door, although all is now peaceful.

In November, 2014, the Montoya family’s dog Blue was having problems.  “He was showing signs for about a week,” Vera Montoya said.  “He lost his appetite and stopped eating.  I thought he might have eaten some of the kids’ Halloween candy. But then he didn’t eat for two days and he had a fever. Then he had a seizure. “

Mrs. Montoya, who was not working at the time, said that she didn’t have pet insurance and not much money to spend.  “I felt kind of helpless.  I didn’t want to take him to the hospital, knowing I didn’t have any way to pay for it.  I didn’t know then that there were places that offer people financial aid in those situations.”

But Blue, a pitbull, was shaking and feverish.  So she took him to an emergency hospital near her home in Santa Ana. “They took x-rays and found a small piece of metal that had punctured his intestine. And they told me that he needed emergency surgery.”

Vera told the doctor that she could not pay a surgical bill. He told her he would not do the surgeryH and he gave her the names of hospitals that he thought could help. The next day, she took Blue to one of the hospitals. The doctor said he could not do the surgery without payment and wanted $70 for the consultation.  “It was kind of hard right there,” she said.

In the meantime, she had gotten a call from one of the other hospitals – Mesa West Pet Hospital in Costa Mesa. “They said that they could treat Blue. So we rushed right over there.  The doctor took him in to emergency surgery and she did what she could for him.  She found a piece of metal and we tried to figure out what it was.  After careful consideration, I think it was from a spiked collar we had bought for him but never used. It was hanging on a door knob and one of the spikes was missing. He loved to chew on anything he could get ahold of and we think he chewed on the collar and swallowed it.”

The hospital suggested seeking Angel Fund help. Vera filled out the forms and was granted nearly $500 in assistance. She is grateful for the help that gave Blue a chance to live.

The hospital did not have 24-hour staffing so Vera was told that she should take Blue home at night and bring him back in the morning. “The first night, we brought him home on a gurney because he was heavily medicated. . . . He woke up at 4 a.m. and I offered him some water but he didn’t want a drink. The next morning he seemed to have bounced back – very resilient. He seemed almost himself but he was weak. We took him to the clinic and he looked at me like he didn’t want me to leave him.  I was planning to pick him up and bring him home later that afternoon.

“But at 2 o’clock I got a call from the clinic. The doctor said: ‘He didn’t make it.’ She said he had had a seizure and didn’t survive.”

Today the Montoya family has another dog, a Rottweiler-pit bull mix. “We got the dog because my five children were so heart broken. We mourned for several weeks and it just seemed like we couldn’t get past it. We’d never had to deal with death before and it was so hard. I got the new dog to try to help us recover.  It’s still a very hard thing to discuss.

“Blue slept in my oldest daughter’s bed.  He was close with the entire family.  When I was pregnant with my two-year-old, he knew it and when I came home from the hospital, he was very welcoming of the baby.”

Vera now is employed in a medical office and her husband, Bladimir, works in maintenance and as a janitor. Their five children range in age from 2 to 20.

“In my culture we celebrate Day of the Dead,” Vera said. “So it was ironic that it was on November first [when Pulse initially contacted her]. And I thought it was really surprising because I was doing the best I could to remember Blue – all the wonderful things about him.”

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.”