Puppy found badly injured on side of 91 freeway in Corona

(FOX 11) - Five month old, Stovoker--a German Shepherd is all puppy. He loves to be pet and offers up doggy kisses to the vet's assistants at the Animal Care Center. If not for the bandages on three of his legs, you'd never know that this beautiful creature was left for dead on the side of the 91 freeway in Corona.

"We're assuming, he fell off a truck. He wasn't tied in properly. Sadder still, whoever owned the dog, didn't stop for it," said Bart Huber, the dog's veterinarian.

Three weeks ago, the CHP found the dog on the shoulder of the freeway, next to a battered dog igloo. They brought him into the animal control. That's where officer Michelle Gallina met the dog for the first time.

"You just kind of know. Oh, that could be my next dog," Gallina says laughing. "That soundslike an occupational hazard," I said. "It is." She smiles.

Despite the puppy's injuries, Gallina felt like it was meant to be for her and her husband Rick Martin to adopt the shepherd. Just that day, she had euthanized a German Shepherd, suffering from prostate cancer.

Still, adding to their animal family now means taking on all of his vet bills.

The dog has to be sedated in order to change his bandages and so each visit, twice a weeks costs a couple hundred dollars.

She still doesn't know how much it will cost to rehab the right leg and ready the animal for the vet to amputate the left one.

She started a GoFundMe page, hoping that other animal lovers will help pay for his rising vet bills.

The money donated goes straight to the Animal Care Center of Corona.