by Elayne Gonzalez

Elayne Gonzalez is the founder of Mell’s Mutts, an animal rescue in Fresno, CA. They will be sharing their animal rescue stories with us each month.

Mell’s Mutts started because we saw a great need to assist our community with spay and neuter services. Each year we help several hundreds of people with either low cost or no cost spay/neuter for their pets.

Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, we haven’t had the opportunity to help this past year as much as we usually do, however, we found another great need in our community: to assist dogs with major medical issues. We have helped numerous owners who could not afford to cover much needed surgeries for their dogs; we have taken in dogs from our local shelters that are in immediate need of major medical help; we also help dogs whose owners can no longer care for them and stray dogs who have an immediate need for medical attention.

We would like to introduce you to two of our most recent doggies who almost didn’t make it, but, because we were able to intervene and because of the help of those who donate, these two dogs are on the road to recovery and will soon be available for adoption.

Rosie is not even two years old. She is a beautiful German Shepherd. Sadly, Rosie suffered a horrible accident and her leg got stuck and tangled in wires. She went without medical care and eventually her leg was so badly infected her owner’s had no choice but to take her in to be seen by a vet. The infection was literally killing her! The owner’s were given the option of having the leg immediately removed, which would be a costly surgery but would hopefully save her life, or they could euthanize her. The owner’s were going to euthanize her! One of our amazing team member’s was able to offer them the option of surrendering her to our organization if they no longer wanted her and to allow us to try and save her life.

Rosie was immediately taken to our major medical vet and the next day had emergency surgery to remove her horribly infected leg. The infection had already started to spread throughout her weak body so it was touch and go for the first couple of weeks, but she made it! Rosie has really adapted to having three legs, and she is so full of life! She loves playing with other dogs and she loves people. Oh and she also loves terrorizing cats unfortunately. In addition to Rosie, her original owners had several other dogs, and we were very grateful they accepted our help and allowed us to cover the cost of Rosie’s mom to be spayed, and they asked us to take another puppy they could no longer care for.

So, a situation that originally looked hopeless turned out to be an opportunity to educate and help this family.

The second doggy we’d like to tell you about is Laz, short for Lazarus, and let us tell you how that fitting name came to be.

One morning, one of our team members drove by a busy intersection and was so sad to see two small dogs dead on the side of the road. She reported them to animal control, so they could be picked up. A few hours later she drove back by the intersection and to her total surprise neither of the little dogs were dead! They both were alive but very badly injured. She picked up the one that seemed more injured and frantically knocked on doors until she found the owner. Then, she went back for the other one who was now running frantic in and out of the intersection with what was clearly a dangling and broken leg. Several volunteers showed up within minutes to try and help secure this guy, and after several hours, he was caught. Unlike the other one this guy didn’t belong to any of the neighbors, and no one had ever seen him before. He was immediately taken to our vet and within two days was in surgery. His leg was so severely broken, it required two pins to be placed criss-crossed in order to save his leg.

We named this guy Lazarus because it was almost like he rose from the dead. It has now been a month and no one has claimed this sweet guy, so once he is medically cleared he, too, will be available for adoption.

Every time we take on these doggies with such serious medical conditions it’s a risk, but we are willing to accept the risk and we try our hardest for those doggies that most of the time have no one else willing to try.

Mell’s Mutts is a non-profit, foster based organization out of Fresno, CA. We run 100% on donations which means we can only help when we have the funds. We rely on our community for support and help.

Website: www.mellsmutts.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/search/top?q=mell%27s%20mutts
Instagram: www.instagram.com/mellsmutts

Check out more animal rescue stories in our Pet Perspective section here in KRL and on our sister website KRL News & Reviews. Advertise in KRL and 10% of your advertising fees can go to to Mell’s Mutts.