BY GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
McALLEN — Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy Bernard couldn’t make it through the night without crying when he first came to live with McAllen Memorial soccer player Gina De La Garza and her family.
After the dogs’ mother fell ill and had to have emergency surgery in November, Bernard and his brother Suki were taken in by De La Garza and her mother, Dr. Donna Joule. At just five weeks old, the dogs hadn’t been weaned and were yet to receive their vaccinations, so Palm Valley Animal Center sent them into foster care rather than exposing them to illness in the kennel.
Joule’s bedroom is adjacent to the enclosed veranda where the dogs typically sleep, so she heard every sound they made each night.
“This one always wanted to be held,” De La Garza said, scratching Bernard behind his ears. “He would just cry and cry until you went and held him.”
Fostering animals for the better part of the past seven years, De La Garza has worked with more than 100 cats and dogs in total. Along with her mother and younger sister, Carly, De La Garza helps raise puppies and kittens that are either too young or too sick to be ready for adoption. Once the dogs are healthy, vaccinated and on solid food, the De La Garzas bring them back to Palm Valley in search of a permanent home.
“I like helping them,” De La Garza said. “A lot of people don’t realize how many animals they have, because people only see what’s available for adoption at the front of the shelter.”
De La Garza, now a senior, was in fifth grade when the family took in its first foster, a schnauzer mutt named Twinkles, as part of her Girl Scouts Silver Award project.
Since, the family has taken on cases of all types and sizes. There was the yellow lab named Rocket, who had kennel cough. Or the blind Pomeranian named Pompom, who would fall into the pool and couldn’t find the stairs to get out.
Then there were the two injured Chihuahua/terrier mixes, Lucky and Lois. One had been thrown from a moving truck and required facial reconstructive surgery, while the other had been attacked by a pit bull.
“We had to feed him with a syringe, and he had to be on a liquid diet, because his jaw was cut and torn,” Joule said. “He had ripped half of his face off.”
The family’s efforts at rehabilitation have almost always been successful, save a group of puppies lost to distemper and two other litters infected with parvovirus.
The highly contagious and deadly parvovirus attacks dogs’ intestinal tracts, leading to severe vomiting and diarrhea. After that case passed, the De La Garza family had to go a year and a half without fostering to ensure no animals would be exposed to traces that might remain in the yard.
“It was very messy,” De La Garza said. “It was really hard.”
With one of the parvovirus litters, the family managed to save two of the five dogs. Joule, a family doctor in McAllen, draws on her experience treating people to try to help the animals.
When the parvovirus dogs required fluids through an IV, Joule was able to administer one from home.
“They’re the only family I have that can do that,” said Debbie Schrock, the foster coordinator for Palm Valley Animal Center. “When I have a problem case, or a lot of young puppies, I think of her first, because she’s so qualified. And her kids are amazing.”
Palm Valley gets in about 120 new animals per day, compared to just about 20 families who are repeat fosters.
Over the year and a half she’s been in her position at Palm Valley, Schrock has found the De La Garza family willing to take on litters of any size and in any condition at any time.
The longest the family ever had an animal was last Christmas, when a cat named Niko with ringworm lived there for six months. Schrock said the shelter rarely sends out animals with ringworm for fear of transmission to humans, but the De La Garza family is the exception because of Joule’s expertise.
“They’re an amazing foster family,” Schrock said. “I can stick anything with them, and it’s going to come out healthy. It’s crazy.”
Each case presents its own challenges. When a dog needs pills, it typically takes a three-person system: one to pin the dog down, another to hold the mouth open, and a third to give it the medication. Other animals have stitches that need fixing, or wounds that require special cream.
With younger, healthier dogs, the challenge is more routine. If the litter includes the mother, the family will line an emptied kiddie pool with blankets, put all of the dogs inside and place it under a heat lamp. The largest litter the family ever took in was a mother and nine puppies.
If the mother doesn’t come along, De La Garza will often bottle feed the puppies by hand. The youngest animals require constant attention, with feedings every couple of hours.
“We have night shifts,” De La Garza said. “You’re up at 5, and you’re up at 3, and you’re up at 1.”
Joule and De La Garza said the biggest challenge of the project is keeping their house in order. When dealing with puppies, the family will line the floor of the veranda with newspapers for easy cleaning and disposal.
Half a dozen bottles of different cleaning solution are lined up on the windowsill, overlooking a pair of torn up doggie beds and tiny red pieces of what used to be one of the animals’ toys. Shoes are always at a particular risk.
“We’ve gone through a couple couches,” De La Garza said.
The labor comes easy to De La Garza, who plans to study nonprofit management in hopes of someday running an orphanage. She said her work with puppies is rewarded every time they swarm her for food or bottle-feeding.
“They’re a lot more work, but they’re a lot of fun,” De La Garza said. “Especially because they’ll just cuddle and sleep in your arms.”
Once the dogs are healed and grown, De La Garza and her family say goodbye, returning them to Palm Valley with the guarantee that they will eventually be adopted.
That time has already come for Suki and Bernard. The two entered the De La Garza home drinking nothing by puppy milk, but by the end were tearing through Costco bags of puppy chow with ease. Suki was adopted Sunday, and Bernard is back at the shelter.
“It used to be a lot harder,” De La Garza said. “But now we know that they’ll have a good home. It’s a lot easier to let them go.”
Palm Valley Animal Center, a private nonprofit organization, is the only full-service, open admission animal intake facility in Hidalgo county. For information on how to adopt or foster, call 956-686-1141 or visit www.pvaconline.com.