by Cassie Gonzalez

Cassie Gonzalez is an Outreach Associate at Valley Animal Center in Fresno, California. VAC will be sharing their animal rescue adventures with us now every month. Check out KRL’s interview with VAC to learn more about what they do.

A little over two years ago, we had a six-month-old Staffordshire mix puppy come to our shelter from a local animal control facility right before he was scheduled to be euthanized. At the time of his arrival, his health was in horrible condition, and he needed a lot of medical attention before he would ever be able to be adopted out.

Yoda came to us completely bald and covered in scabs. After a skin scrape, the staff was able to determine that he had Demodectic Mange, a very harsh skin condition caused by a parasite, which would require months and months of treatment. Yoda had a very long road ahead of him before he would be fully recovered and ready to find his forever home.

After just three short days of Yoda being with us, he became extremely sick with Parvovirus, a very deadly canine virus that he caught prior to coming to our shelter. Yoda was under a great amount of stress, and would need lots of TLC before he would be perfectly healthy again. He had to be isolated so as to not spread the virus to the other animals, so one of our staff members decided to foster him. After he got healthy enough, he was socialized with other pets and humans. Yoda became a very fun-loving furry companion who made friends with everyone he encountered.

After a nine-month-long battle with mange and Parvo, he was finally happy and healthy as can be. It was time for him to be put up for adoption! Sadly for the Fresno community, Yoda would never be on the adoption floor because our Dog Adoption Associate who fostered Yoda the whole time had fallen in love with this little guy, and she decided she was going to take him home!

In December of 2013, Yoda was officially adopted to our staff member, and now lives happily-ever-after with her. Since then, the two have been inseparable. Yoda has two furry best friends at the shelter that he gets to play with when he comes to work, Winchester and Gunner (also rescue dogs from Valley Animal Center). The three musketeers love each other so much and have the best time playing together. Not only does he get to come to work with his mom, Yoda also gets to attend all of the Valley Animal Center events and he loves every minute of it! He already has his Superman costume picked out for this year’s movie-themed Wiggle Waggle Walk & Furry 5K Run, held on Sunday, October 11 at Woodward Park.

The Wiggle Waggle Walk & Furry 5K Run is a fun-filled group dog walk and run, preceded by a festival held at Mountain View shelter at Woodward Park. Participants can walk or run–with or without a furry friend–to raise money for the Valley Animal Center, to help the shelter take care of animals like Yoda. Registration is now available at www.valleyanimal.org/walk.

If you aren’t able to make the event but still want to contribute to our shelter, donations are greatly appreciated and go far in helping us provide shelter and care for the animals at our facility. As a 501(c)3 rescue, we are completely donation-based and rely on the support of the community to fund our day-to-day operations. Thank you!

Keep up with VAC’s animal rescue adventures here at KRL in their monthly column, and learn more about adopting from them, volunteering, and donating to VAC on their website. Advertise in KRL and 10% of your advertising fees can go to VAC.

Check out more animal rescue stories in our Pet Perspective section.