Dodger -- One lucky dog / Dumped pup elicits donations, offers of new home

OGDEN -- At 2 weeks old, Dodger has finally opened his eyes and can see the world that he came within a whisker of not getting to live in.

He's healthy and fat, almost double in size, although his left hind leg is still a red stump. It's a birth defect, probably the reason someone dumped him in Ogden's Lorin Farr Park on Jan. 22 when he was just a week old.

"But his mother took good care of him," said Alma Madrigal, a volunteer at the Ogden Animal Shelter, who is foster-caring Dodger.

"There was no infection, and he was clean and healthy."

Dodger, a black puppy of indeterminate breed, was found that Friday afternoon by a man walking his dog near the park, Madrigal said. Dodger had been wrapped in a plastic bag and dumped.

The man who found him "was almost crying," she said, but got Dodger to the Ogden Animal Shelter minutes before it closed.

Madrigal quickly took charge of the pup, taking him home so her daughter could care for him.

An article in the Standard-Examiner two days later about the Black Dog Rescue Project mentioned Dodger as one of the dogs it was trying to save. Shelter workers say black dogs, in general, are harder to adopt out.

Trisha Glenn, a worker at the shelter, said that since the article ran, more than enough donations have come in to pay for Dodger's care, including surgery on his deformed leg, which will have to be amputated.

"And we have several people lined up who want to adopt him," she said.

Madrigal's daughter, Vanessa, 21, is doing the work, waking up every four hours to bottle-feed Dodger.

She has been fostering kittens and puppies from the shelter since she was 14, she said. When Dodger first came home, she had to feed him every two hours.

"Now he's a little bigger, it depends. He wakes me up in the middle of the night, but I don't mind it."

Alma Madrigal said donations are paying for all of Dodger's vet visits as well as the surgery, which she said will take place in about three weeks when Dodger is strong enough.

Glenn said the bigger problem is that Dodger is just one of many black dogs the shelter gets in addition to dogs of all other colors.

"We had 11 come in today," she said Monday. Most were black labs, because that is one of the most common dog breeds in Utah.

So even though Dodger is spoken for, there are plenty more available for adoption, she said.

Call (801) 629-8244 for more information.